AI-enabled book-to-screen studio and distribution platform Authors First launches

Genghis: Birth of an Empire was created in collaboration with the book’s author Conn Iggulden

Authors First, an AI-enabled book-to-screen studio and distribution platform, has officially launched in New York with more than US$10m in funding.

The company has raised the finance in a seed round led by early-stage investor Brand Foundry and company founder Robert Hamwee, with participation from entrepreneurs and angel investors including Bolt Ventures – The Family Office of David Blitzer, Andy Mills, Mike Duggal and John Kline.

Robert Hamwee

The studio’s first book-to-screen adaptation is Genghis: Birth of an Empire, created in collaboration with the book’s author Conn Iggulden. Known as Wolf of the Plains in the UK, the 2007 novel is the first in British author Iggulden’s Conqueror series.

Prior to Authors First, CEO Hamwee spent three decades in private equity and institutional finance. He is joined by chief content officer Garrett Weaver, who previously worked in acquisitions at Entertainment One and Universal Pictures.

Other members of the team include senior producer Gina Bouchard, who formerly oversaw branded content production at Vice Media, and chief experience officer John S Couch, who previously held the same role at Fox and was also VP of product design at Hulu and VP and creative director of CBS Interactive.

The aim of Authors First is to give full creative control over its adaptations to the authors of the original works, working with them across the entire process from character design and scripting to storyboarding and virtual cinematography.

Through what it described as its “human-led, AI-enabled production capabilities,” the company said it is able to greenlight “ambitious historical fiction, sci-fi and fantasy adaptations that budget constraints would typically prevent traditional studios from pursuing.”

With Genghis: Birth of an Empire, Iggulden worked with a team of more than 30 production artists and helped guide narrative arcs, camera angles, character dialogue, score and visual details. The creative artists at Authors First then used AI and other technology to bring the author’s vision to life.

Authors First said by replacing “costly on-site shoots, CGI and green screens with emerging technology,” the team was able to execute “difficult cinematic shots with relative ease.”

In addition to Iggulden’s novels, Authors First’s upcoming projects include UK author Peter F Hamilton’s 2004 science fiction novel Pandora’s Star, as well as adaptations of bestselling books from American author David Ball.