AI film studio Utopai Studios and Chinese leading TV and film production company Huace Film & TV have announced a strategic partnership, with the first project being a fully AI-generated animated series titled “Journey to the West: The Lost Five Hundred Years”. According to Variety, the series will center on Sun Wukong while he is trapped under the Five Elements Mountain, telling the “untold” origin story of how he became the protector of the monk Jin Chanzi. Huace will produce the series using Utopai’s proprietary AI narrative platform PAI, while Utopai retains distribution rights outside of China; both parties plan to build it into a multi-platform IP matrix spanning series, streaming, and theatrical releases. The director, screenwriter, and voice cast have yet to be announced.
Utopai had just released PAI 2.0 a few weeks prior, claiming it can maintain narrative consistency in long-form content and give creators finer control over the generation process. The company has also secured support from NBA star Carmelo Anthony (who invested through his production company Creative 7 and became a strategic partner) and James Harden, the latter having used PAI 1.0 in April to generate an animated short film featuring his iconic beard. The “Journey to the West” project was first reported by Deadline and is among the largest known fully AI-generated long-form narrative content projects to date.