Greg Poehler, creator-star of “Welcome to Sweden,” is teaming with Linus Tunström, one of Sweden’s highest-profile stage directors and creative producer-writer Filip Hammarström (“Jordskott”) to launch two new companies, Art of Stories and Foreshadow, that aim to transform movie screnwriing.
Doing so, their goal is to heighten chances of making relatable, moving and impactful films which may also be better commercial bets.
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Foreshadow also makes an interestingly novel use of artificial intelligence, creating trailer-length shorts of films as they are being written, not in the buildup to hitting cinema theaters.
Both companies will be presented by Hammarström at the Göteborg Film Festival’s TV Drama Vision on Jan. 27 at a session entitled Rethinking the Audience.
Art of Stories will create writers’ rooms for movies, transferring the practice from TV to film. Writers will also form a collective, each providing feedback for others’ projects, with everyone having a financial stake in all of the projects. “It’s very Swedish. I like to call it a ‘creative commune.’ Although we don’t all wear the same robes or dresses. At least not yet,” Poehler joked. “But this is so much more. We have a completely different process and incentive for the writers.”
“We want to provide a space where writers can write and perfect their story before going to a producer,” added Hammarström.
Additionally, Art of Stories will use feedback from the general public while writing their scripts. Via a new and now up-and-running app called Foreshadow, scripts or synopses can be uploaded and an AI-generated short film produced. Users of the app will then watch and provide feedback in exchange for certain rewards, like movie tickets.
The trio originally intended to use the app mainly just for their own screenplays. However, “we ended up starting a whole new company for Foreshadow. The demand has been so great,” said Hammarström, Foreshadow CEO. “Everyone loves the idea. Getting feedback from the public on a script at an early stage is such valuable data not only for writers but especially for studios and production companies trying to decide where to spend their money.”
Rather than the scripts sent out to focus groups, the minutes-long shorts on Foreshadow, produced by a team of AI expert technicians, are more easily digestible by audiences. Films will also have a sketch or storyboard look, so that they feel very much like a work in progress, encouraging the user or reviewer to feel like they are part of the creative process giving feedback at such an upstream stage.
“We expect the app to be a useful tool for creators, writers, producers or editors basically anyone in the movie industry. Sure, you can ignore the data, but you do so at your own risk,” said Tunström. The aim is not to ask what the audience wants, but to ask if our stories resonate with them, he added.
Foreshadow is now online offering early access to some customers. It has top Swedish film distributor-producer Nordisk Film (“Midsummer”) as an early client, and has secured over 30,000 testers, categorised in different demographics.
“More features will come throughout the year. For now we can only do maximum two-minute AI shorts, perfect for story trailers,” Hammarström told Variety.
Since Foreshadow is open to anyone, there are no targets for scripts which can be films, TV series and more. “The sky is the limit for our customers,” said Hammarström.
For its part, Art of Stories is aiming for films with a bigger audience the first time round, Hammarström told Variety. “They can be any genre but it needs to have a wider appeal: sci-fi, comedy and crime are all welcome. But the premise needs to be interesting and the story needs to be impactful. But we are only working with scripts that have a positive and/or hopeful transformation arch. We believe our world really needs that right now. We will focus on movies and also mini-series this first year since they have similar story structures. Also, longer series have definitely taken a hit. So our focus are films but also mini-series now,” he said.
“We want to write films that move people, that make a difference,” said Tunström. Art of Stories has some writers on board and is still reviewing others. It aims to launch in March.
Greg Poehler, Linus Tunström, Filip Hammarström: Brief Bios
An American-Swedish screenwriter, producer, actor, comedian and former attorney, Poehler leapt to attention with romantic fish-out-of-water half-hour “Welcome to Sweden,” produced by Sweden’s TV 4 and sister and fellow comedian Amy Poehler. The series was broadcast by NBC. Poehler also starred in U.S.-Canada throuple comedy “You Me Her,” which ran to five seasons over 2016-20.
Linus Tunström is one of Sweden’s highest-profile theater directors who also helmed TV miniseries Masterwork (2006) and wrote and directed “To Be Continued,” which won the Canal+ Award at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.
Harrmarström served as a creative producer and writer on multi-prized crime horror-thriller “Jordskott”(2015-17) and creative producer, head writer and producer of well-received mystery sci-fi series Drom (2019). He co-penned horror pic “Feed,” which took the Audience Award at Sweden’s 2023 Guldbagge Awards.
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