EXCLUSIVE: Utopai Studios and Chinese producer-distributor Huace Film & TV are co-producing fully AI-generated animated series, Journey to the West: The Lost Five Hundred Years.
Using Utopai’s AI system PAI, the series is designed as the opening chapter in a planned theatrical franchise inspired by one of China’s most influential literary and mythological classics.
The new series “reimagines the untold origin of why Sun Wukong, the Monkey King — a rebellious trickster, warrior, and immortal force of nature imprisoned beneath a mountain for five hundred years — would ultimately become the protector of a monk he had never met before”.
Under the agreement, Huace will produce the animated series using PAI, while Utopai Studios will hold all distribution rights to the property outside China. The first season is planned as an animated series for distribution across broadcast, streaming, and digital platforms, with the broader franchise developed for future theatrical expansion.
The project marks the first new series to move forward under the strategic partnership previously announced by Utopai and Huace, under which Huace selected PAI as its engine for long-form narrative creation.
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“Journey to the West is not only one of China’s most beloved cultural treasures — it is one of the great mythological universes in world entertainment,” said Cecilia Shen, Co-Founder and CEO of Utopai Studios. “With Huace, we have the opportunity to build a bold new interpretation of this story, beginning with the untold emotional origin of Sun Wukong and the companions who would one day change the course of the journey west. This is exactly why we built Utopai Studios: to help partners unlock iconic IP, expand worlds at franchise scale and bring ambitious stories to life in ways that were not possible before.”
“Journey to the West is a story Chinese audiences have lived with for generations, and it deserves to be reintroduced with scale, emotion and imagination,” added Binxing Fu, CEO of Huace Group. “By partnering with Utopai Studios, we can bring this mythology into a fully AI-generated animated format while preserving the cultural depth, emotional power and sense of wonder that have made the story endure for hundreds of years. This partnership also gives us a path to build the property across animated series and theatrical opportunities for audiences around the world.”
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