Evan and Gregg Spiridellis are no strangers to the intersection of technology and entertainment. In 1999, back in the dial-up Internet days, the brothers founded JibJab, which quickly went viral for its flash animations and political satire videos such as the John Kerry vs. George W. Bush parody This Land! The pair later expanded into the children’s educational sector with StoryBots, which became an 11-time Emmy-winning franchise that originated on YouTube and was later acquired by Netflix. 

So, it’s perhaps no surprise that now the L.A.-based duo is leaning into the AI space with their new banner Spiridellis Bros. Studios, an AI-powered animation studio backed by investors including Polaris Founders Capital, Caruso Ventures, Google’s AI Futures Fund, Ashton Kutcher, Guy Oseary and more. 

“These AI tools are the most exciting things that we’ve seen in 26 years,” Gregg Spiridellis says. “But we don’t just think of ourselves as an AI studio. We are really thinking about the stories and the IP — that’s the main focus for us. We see ourselves as storytellers who can actually create at a level that can now compete with the biggest studios for a tenth of the budget.”

The first IP out of the gate is Space Unicorn, the company’s debut animated feature which is being shopped to buyers at the Cannes market. The film sees Gregg and Evan direct from a script written with Kubo and the Two Strings writer Marc Haimes. 

“It’s about this deeply optimistic, lovable unicorn who winds up on a journey to a planet that has been, in essence, taken over by tech,” says Evan Spiridellis. “It’s a story we wanted to tell. We’re techno optimists but we also have teenage kids, and we’ve seen how isolating tech can be. The story is really, at its core, technology and isolation versus community and authentic joy.” 

Space Unicorn is inspired by Parry Gripp’s viral song of the same name and was born through an exclusive partnership the company signed with the Emmy-winning musician, which gives Spiridellis Bros. Studios global rights to develop characters and worlds from Gripp’s full catalog. 

“We’ve done more than 70 music videos together with Parry,” says Gregg Spiridellis. “With this film we see a unique business opportunity to launch the franchise with an independently-produced, animated, commercial feature film. We will use AI as a tool, but we really think about it from the IP perspective first. We never could have produced a movie like this before these tools existed.” 

What’s exciting, says Evan Spiridellis, is that Gripp’s catalog has no pre-existing visuals, with YouTube videos of his songs populated with fan art. “We’re designing this from the ground up and ultimately our plan is to make this and continue to engage the audience that is already there and build on it.” 

He continues: “It’s not just Space Unicorn. Parry’s catalog has hundreds of characters so, in our writing, we wanted to see how all of these characters interconnected.” 

At present, the burgeoning company is slowing building infrastructure, with a set of technologists already aboard. While the duo has built tech businesses before, this time, they say, the aim is have “technology serve the artist.”