Utopai Studios Moves AI-Native Film Into Guild Production and 2027 Slate

The Most Serious Fart brings together writer Joe Stillman, nominated for an Oscar for adapted screenplay for Shrek; casting director Scott Muller, whose credits include Frozen; and art director John Lee, whose credits include Coraline. The family animated film follows Siegfried, an unusually serious fart who wants to change how others see him and, on his journey, learns self-acceptance and belonging.

Much of the past three years of generative AI discussion in film has focused on replacement, lower costs, one-person crews and the idea that everyone can be a director. Utopai’s approach has instead been to enter the existing film business. It has joined Hollywood-related unions, is preparing theatrical releases, and has drawn interest from television buyers in Brazil and Germany willing to pay ordinary series prices, according to the iFanr report.

TechRadar asked Utopai chief operating officer Kevin Chong how the company responds to audiences who are wary of AI films and check before buying tickets whether a film used AI. Chong said Utopai does not treat AI films as a separate genre. “AI is just a tool, no different in essence from visual effects or virtual production,” he said.

In September, Utopai’s custom video model, Utopai X, ranked second globally and first in the United States on Artificial Analysis’s text-to-video blind evaluation, the report said. It was the first film company to place so high with its own model since the ranking began.

AI film and television has broadly followed two commercial paths. One is a tools business, selling model subscriptions to creators and charging by generated duration. The other is a content business, in which the company takes on development and production risk, sends works into the existing film and television trading system, and recovers costs through rights pre-sales, television broadcasts, streaming, theatrical releases and later IP revenue. Traditional buyers do not lower risk standards just because a production uses a new technical route. They still need clear copyright, on-time delivery, stable characters and images across hundreds of shots, no unresolved actor-rights issues, compliance with local broadcast rules and evidence that audiences will watch. Many AI projects have failed to reach the procurement table.

Utopai’s eight-episode science-fiction series Space Nation, with episodes of about 45 to 60 minutes, is directed across the season by Martin Weisz. It is in production and is planned to proceed under a Hollywood guild framework. Space Nation is also Utopai’s first complete guild-system series production. As the first AI film company to join Hollywood-related unions, Utopai negotiated with the unions over rules for AI content, the proportion of live actors and crew involved, and the boundaries of AI-assisted work.

Forbes reported that Utopai has pre-sold some international distribution rights for Space Nation and the historical epic Cortés to traditional buyers, including the Brazil-based Globo system and German television, at normal prices already used for non-AI content. If both projects are delivered as planned, combined pre-sale revenue could reach about $110 million. Cortés is set against the clash of civilizations after the Spanish entered the Aztec Empire in 1519, with a screenplay by Nicholas Kazan, and is expected to receive a full theatrical release in 2027. Utopai is combining live-action performance with digital environments, using AI for some work that would previously require large sets, post-production visual effects and on-set execution.

In China, Utopai plans to co-develop Journey to the West: The Missing 500 Years with Huace Media, finding a new story in the blank period when Sun Wukong is trapped under Five Elements Mountain. Another 2027 title is Half Moon, a family drama directed by Berlin Silver Bear-winning director Hyo-joo Yang. The film follows a cross-cultural family in Germany, focusing on Yeri, a neglected girl, and her aunt Ah-Jin, who has exiled herself, works as a caregiver and carries past physical and emotional trauma; over one summer they learn to understand and respect each other. Principal photography began in Germany in August 2026, and the film is planned for 2027. PAI will support some visual elements, such as swimming sequences that are first performed and shot live, with AI completing parts of the environment that are difficult to achieve with traditional sets and effects.

PAI, or Production Assistive Intelligence, is a production intelligence platform Utopai developed to solve continuity in feature production. Creators can design a character model, place the character in multiple scenes, choose camera positions, modify performance and environment, and regenerate images after adjustments. Scripts are broken into scenes and shots, and character, location and prop references are placed in a Production Library. Each generated version is linked to the original shot, allowing teams to compare takes and retain revision history before sending selected material to Adobe Premiere or DaVinci Resolve. The underlying video-generation model is Utopai X, which was specially trained for film production scenes on the basis of MiniMax H3, with targeted optimization for light reflection, caustics, spatial understanding and cross-shot continuity. According to Artificial Analysis, Utopai X ranks first in audio synchronization and physical performance, and second in lighting and materials and camera control. When filmmakers choose Utopai X, PAI generates video content in that environment. PAI organizes work and information, while the model generates video material.

Utopai also announced a partnership with DeNA, one of PAI’s overseas commercial deployments. Japanese animation has a highly mature and relatively closed production system, and many studios are cautious about introducing outside tools. DeNA’s decision to adopt PAI was driven in large part by commercial considerations: the company holds many content assets that have long been frozen because production costs are too high. Under the framework, Utopai’s AI production experts work with DeNA’s creative and production staff on visual concept development, character and environment design, scene planning and iteration. Final decisions on story, visual style, performance and overall tone remain with DeNA’s artists.

The projects correspond to several forms of AI-native film and television. Animation is currently the category where AI can be used most easily and audiences are most accepting. Art films such as Half Moon use AI only to assist with a small number of difficult visual elements, while live performance and director-led storytelling remain the core. High-threshold productions such as Cortés and Space Nation use AI mainly to complete staging and visual effects that conventional live-action methods could not fully present.

“AI Native” has become a label across industries. In film and television, it is often taken to mean that actors are AI-generated, scenes are AI-generated, and editing, color grading and compositing are also handed to AI, with almost no live-action team involved and the crew merely selecting assets and parameters for models. That definition places AI and people in opposition and does not help better stories reach audiences. APPSO argued that AI-native film does not mean removing people from production. It should mean using AI to rewrite the infrastructure of feature production so that parts that were previously unaffordable, too slow or impossible to shoot become possible, while narrative, performance, aesthetics and final responsibility remain with people who understand stories. Utopai offers one reference sample of this model.

AI-native film, in this view, is not an “all-AI film” but a new production method. With AI, directors and writers can see spatial relationships, shot rhythm and visual scale earlier in development, turning imagination that once remained in text or verbal description into preview versions that can be discussed and revised. In production, AI is better suited to repetitive, complex, dangerous or hard-to-scale work: building nonexistent cities, generating large crowd scenes, filling in complex environmental changes, preparing high-risk action sequences and iterating large amounts of material in post-production according to composition and lighting requirements already set by the director. The crew’s work shifts from completing every element by hand to defining rules, supervising the process and selecting results. Decisions run through every stage, from development, casting, performance and shot design to final cut.

As AI moves deeper into film production, actors’ performance rights, creators’ credit rights, the sources of training material and the copyright boundaries of generated content also become part of the production process. Future production standards will need to judge whether an image is realistic and ask where it came from, who authorized it, who selected it and who ultimately bears responsibility. From an industry perspective, the path is not only about lowering costs. Grand worlds, complex staging and cross-regional shooting that only a few companies could afford may be attempted by more teams with good stories and clear creative intent. As production barriers fall, competition concentrates more on story judgment, directing ability, organizational efficiency and a work’s distinctive character. When making an image is no longer scarce, making audiences believe why that image exists becomes scarcer. A living AI-native film should let directors see their ideas earlier, give writers more chances to test stories, allow actors, art, cinematography, editing and other creators to retain participation and expression, and let audiences feel the choices behind each shot. If a film leaves only traces of a model, it is a technical demonstration; only when audiences remember the characters, emotions and world does it become cinema. The endpoint of AI-native film is not to let machines take over the set. From the silent era to the AI era, the value of technology should be to give more good stories a chance to enter cinemas.

Editor's Summary

Utopai Studios is trying to bring AI-assisted production into Hollywood guild workflows, international pre-sales and a 2027 slate led by The Most Serious Fart, Space Nation, Cortés and Half Moon. Its PAI platform and Utopai X model are central to that effort, while the company says final creative authority remains with directors, writers and partner studios. The outcome will test whether AI-native production can meet traditional delivery, rights and audience standards.