‘Harry Potter Meets MBTI’ Franchise ‘Solis Ark Academy’ Leads AI Studio Storyverse Into Cannes Market (EXCLUSIVE)

Storyverse, a new AI-native entertainment studio founded by Emmy-nominated producer Jesse Z., has made its market debut at Cannes, presenting a multi-genre slate and a proprietary filmmaking system the company says can move projects from script to screen in as few as five days.

The Los Angeles-based company combines Hollywood film professionals and AI engineers in a production workflow it describes as capable of delivering cinematic content at a fraction of traditional costs. Its slate spans crime, fantasy, sci-fi, and urban drama, with partners across North America, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.

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Storyverse’s flagship original franchise is “Solis Ark Academy,” a fantasy property created with award-winning animation director Lance F. Described by the company as “Harry Potter meets MBTI,” the project is designed as a scalable cross-platform universe encompassing drama, gaming, and merchandising.

The headline drama title is “Il Cinese,” an Italian crime drama series adapted from a bestselling novel by Andrea Cotti. The project comes from award-winning Italian filmmaker Cristiano Bortone and is being produced in partnership with MYmovies, Italy’s leading platform for cinema audiences. AI voice technology for the series is supplied by MiniMax, whose multilingual speech synthesis is being used to render a range of regional Italian accents.

Further titles on the slate include “Agent Yum Yum,” a sci-fi action microdrama co-developed with Celestine Pictures; “Last War: Under The Hardhat,” a zombie-action branded microdrama commissioned by a leading mobile game company; and “Molly Bling Bling,” an original urban IP that was a finalist at the San Francisco International Film Festival Westridge Fund, developed with When Pigs Fly Films and Grid Vision Inc.

Underpinning the company’s output is its proprietary “Director-level AI System,” which maps core elements of the professional filmmaking process – screenwriting, storyboarding, cinematography, editing, and sound design – into a structured, AI-assisted production pipeline.

Jesse Z. said: “Storyverse was created to bridge Hollywood storytelling craft with scalable AI-native production. We believe the future of entertainment will belong to creators who can combine authentic cinematic language with next-generation production tools. Our goal is not to replace filmmakers, but to empower a new generation of storytellers to create premium content faster, more globally, and more accessibly than ever before.”

Jesse Z. brings more than a decade of experience as a Hollywood producer and studio executive. Her producing credits include “Hidden Letters,” which was Oscar-shortlisted and Emmy-nominated, “Wuhan Wuhan,” which received an Emmy nomination and premiered at Hot Docs, and “Maika,” which premiered at Sundance. Her studio work spans “Malignant,” “Midway,” “Umma,” and “K-Pops!” Her directorial project “Where the Mountain Women Sing” won Best Pitch at Frontières at the Cannes Film Market and was selected for APM Busan and TIFFCOM. She is scheduled to appear on a Cannes Next panel on May 16.

Heading up production is Dora Wu, whose credits include Netflix’s Emmy Award-winning “Big Vape,” “The Brothers Sun,” and Apple TV+’s “Best Foot Forward.” A member of the Motion Picture Editors Guild Local 700, Wu completed her training under Academy Award-winning director Michael Apted at Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts.

The company’s founding team includes MIT postdoctoral researchers, former Meta machine learning leaders, ex-Google engineers, and AI PhDs from HKUST and UC Berkeley. Storyverse currently works with more than 20 enterprise partners and distribution platforms.

A consumer-facing platform, Hollywood Town, is planned for launch in Q3 2026. Storyverse is also a founding partner of Soulscape, a global AI cinema community established by Keith Zhang that brought together more than 200 creators from 15 countries for a 48-hour filmmaking event in San Francisco, with work judged by “The Matrix” VFX pioneer John Gaeta and “Harry Potter” CG director Craig Talmy.