John Gaeta’s Escape.ai creates platform for emerging entertainment

Escape.ai debuted the beta of its Neo Cinema content distribution platform and creator marketplace to spur emerging forms of entertainment.

As a premier global hub for emerging story, art and experiential content, Escape.ai empowers the newest wave of filmmakers, digital artists, and game creators to seamlessly showcase and monetize original digital content. It’s the latest tech from Academy Award winner John Gaeta, who talked to me about the company in an interview.

Escape.ai offers audiences a curated viewing experience that effectively cuts through the clutter found on traditional content streaming and social media platforms. Uniquely positioned to distribute radical new forms of entertainment, Escape.ai (which spells the name escape.ai) champions ground-breaking creators who are pushing the boundaries of GenAI, game engines and emergent technology.

“It’s a home destination for best in class, new creators, new voices using Gen AI and game engines,” Gaeta said. “I expect all sorts of other novel methods, special capture and whatnot, using advanced emergent technology.”

That technology is being used to create stories, series, shows and other forms of expression, he said. And AI is likely to play a greater role, as courts are now recognizing that AI assisted creations can be copyrighted.

“The basic idea going on here is that really hasn’t been a great home for this content years. A lot of my friends and colleagues have been using Unreal Engine, and other tools, to accomplish new kinds of content and original stories. But there hasn’t been a really great place to find any of that,” Gaeta said.

On places like YouTube or Crunchyroll, you have to hunt for bread crumbs to find such amazing content, Gaeta said. His goal is to curate it and bring it to you in one web site.

So far, there are few choices for artists to find a path to lots of fans. One is to “walk the hot coals” up to distribution platforms like Netflix or HBO. But that could take years for that journey, he said.

“Usually, when you get there, even if you wrote it originally, you tend to lose control of your IP,” he said. “You make a bargain. People can go to YouTube or Instagram and other massive social platforms. But you are now inside all the noise of a billion pieces of other media.”

This isn’t a great experience for artists doing work of high value that deserve fandom, he said.

“Escape.ai is a combination of prestigious, very respectful presentation of highly experimental entertainment,” he said. “It’s people at the cutting edge of storytelling, of visual music, of new forms of expression. And what we do is we curate the best in class and and part of that process involves identifying people that have huge promise.”

“Escape.ai delivers a revolutionary new content destination for experimental storytelling and cutting-edge tech-powered filmmaking. If you like edgy-fun shows like Love Death + Robots or the type of stories spun from game worlds, escape.ai is your place,” said Gaeta. “While other streaming platforms rely heavily on gatekeepers or volume-driven algorithms, Escape.ai prioritizes ground-breaking content and the distribution needs of innovative creators. We are a hybrid platform blending the on-demand allure of premium streamers, the empowerment of creator economies and the viral growth superpower of social media.”

Changing audiences in the world of Gen AI

As demand from worldwide audiences continues to grow exponentially for original genre entertainment, fantastic new worlds, stories and characters, Escape.ai’s dynamic digital content offerings prove particularly appealing and accessible.

According to Statista, more than one-third of video streaming subscribers identify a specific content genre as the primary reason when selecting a new digital content provider.

“It’s really sort of the beginning of a new generation of content creators. I expect the ranks on Escape will be joined by a lot of established names as well as studios that are currently incubating emergent tech to pilot new ideas,” Gaeta said. “I believe that we’ll see across 2025 a true leveling up across the board where this content will elevate into commercial grade, fandom worthy material. It’s a home for the newcomers, the new voices and the risk takers. There are new pieces coming every day.”

Accordingly, Escape.ai effectively serves next-generation audiences around the world by showcasing the latest GenAI and game engine cinematic offerings. Additionally, creators on Escape.ai can easily monetize their work through a variety of revenue models, including direct fan support, merchandise offerings, and creator-specific subscription options.

“Escape.ai caters to a new generation of viewers looking to discover a new generation of bold, innovative stories and connect directly with the people producing them,” said Gaeta, in a statement. “escape.ai champions the autonomy and growth of the newest class of creators by removing old system obstacles, increasing visibility for new voices, harnessing emergent technologies and enabling a vibrant community between artists, fans and supporters. Previously, this combination of qualities was desperately lacking for audiences and creators alike.”

Gaeta has worked on entertainment/tech such as The Matrix, Magic Leap, Epic Games and Lucasfilm/Disney. Gaeta isn’t using Escape.ai to make his own movies.

On the other hand, he has a number of projects. He’s working with former Lucasfilm producer Kiri Hart on something called Metropolis, not based on the Fritz Lang movie but the Japanese manga work by Osamu Tezuka. They’re putting some of that work into Gen AI on Escape.

Gaeta said he is focused on short content for the moment and wants to see what the experimental work can achieve in that space, rather than with full-length movies. He loves working with actors and authors and believes, “Human authors are the only thing that matter in the future of Gen AI and Neo Cinema.”

The company has located a lot of work already and posted it on its site, mainly by asking the artists themselves whose work they respect among their peers. Gaeta expects to raise a new round of funding.

Curating a site for creators

Escape is curating its own awards right now as creators vote on content. The firm is is moving from alpha testing to its beta on March 1 and closing voting on that day.

When Gaeta’s team finds a good artist, they don’t commission a film. Rather, they ask them to populate their channel with art as they see fit and Escape curates the work.

“As the months tick on, they become more and more ambitious,” he said.

Origins

The company has been in alpha mode for about a year, and it has done zero marketing so far. The Neo Cinema side of the platform is invite-only so far and it has more stories. There’s another section of “inspirations” that include short form films. It’s like an image gallery that you might see on Midjourney, or Instagram.

Fans will eventually be able to message creators and creators can post their journals. There are aspects of a creator economy that Escape is building for creators. It will also be fair for the creators, he said, where Escape won’t ask for ownership of the IP. Fans will be able to make “support” contributions.

Gaeta’s views on the wider entertainment universe

As for Inworld AI, Gaeta said he is still a senior strategic adviser for the gaming AI company that he helped get off the ground. That’s more about creating the future of interactive AI characters, he said.

There’s a part of the site where the company can bring fans and creators into the same virtual theater. About 20 people can go into the theater and watch films in a social setting. Fans can set off virtual fireworks and otherwise have fun watching. There will be another viewing area soon, the Creator Club, with a beautiful art deco style.

I asked if Gaeta was still a big fan of the metaverse. He said, “The thing that I learned in the last number of years is that it’s important to have a focus on the experience. So people are there for a reason, right? They’re coming less because of the ambiguous promise of a metaverse. People show up for other people. They show up for worlds. They go to a Star Wars event. Our immersive space is very much focused on experiencing and celebrating the content on Escape. That focus was one of my lessons.”

Eventually, he thinks his efforts will converge with the developers of other storytelling platforms or worlds. He knows scriptwriter and filmmaker David S. Goyer, who is working with the Story blockchain platform to help generate and measure user-generated content contributions to the work of artists. Gaeta sees artists like David Slade (Black Mirror: Bandersnatch) working on everything from movies to experimental technology.

As for the layoffs in the game industry and Hollywood, Gaeta said there are “principles of entropy” where the energy winds down because there is too much middle management, risk aversion and sequels that stops the creativity from breaking through.

“Some original content gets through, but it has only gotten worse,” he said. “And there is obviously another trend line where social media encroaches on the viewership of traditional streamers” — and doesn’t share the proceeds with with creators.

As for some of the work so far, Gaeta said, “They look like Marvel movies at five minutes in length.”

While focusing on human creation, the creators are experimenting with AI-driven characters and entertainment. While cartoon-style art has been working well on Roblox and Fortnite, Gaeta believes that high-end 3D imagery will also find its place with the new generation of fans.

“You’re going to see gorgeous Gen AI characters and it’s potentially an inflection point for the metaverse,” he said. “A metaverse is meaningless without people and characters. If you could populate a space with incredible characters who can prompt you through experiences and interact with you, I absolutely think people would love that.”

Gaeta believes that blockchain tech like Neal Stephenson’s Lamina1 and Story could eventually help track the contributions of UGC for a given IP and share the revenues generated with that UGC.