AI company Utopai Studios and Chinese production company Huace have teamed up on a fully AI-generated adaptation of the Chinese literary classic “Journey to the West” in the first project of their strategic partnership.
“Journey to the West: 500 Lost Years” explores the “untold origin” story of how Sun Wukong, the imprisoned Monkey King, the protagonist of the 1592 mythological book, grows up to protect the monk Jin Changji. Utopai did not immediately say whether a director, screenwriter or actors were involved in the project.
Huace will use Utopai’s AI storytelling platform PAI to produce the series, but Utopai will retain distribution rights outside of China. The duo envisions the show becoming the driving force behind a franchise that spans broadcast, streaming and theatrical platforms.
“‘Journey to the West’ is not only one of China’s most beloved cultural treasures, but also one of the great mythical worlds of world entertainment,” Cecilia Shen, CEO and co-founder of Utopai, said in a statement. “With Huace, we have the opportunity to build a bold new interpretation of this story, starting with the untold emotional origins of Son Goku and his companions that will one day change his journey to the West. This is exactly why we founded Utopai Studios: to help our partners unlock iconic IP, expand their worlds at franchise scale, and bring ambitious stories to life in ways never before possible.”
“‘Journey to the West’ is a story that Chinese audiences have lived through for generations, and it deserves to be reintroduced with scale, emotion and imagination,” added Fuen Xingbin, CEO of Hua Ace Group. “By partnering with Utopai Studios, we are able to bring this mythology to a completely AI-generated animated format, while preserving the cultural depth, emotional power, and sense of wonder that has kept this story alive for hundreds of years. This partnership also gives us a path to build on this work across animated series and theatrical opportunities for audiences around the world.”
The announcement comes weeks after Utopai announced the second version of PAI, which could aid the content production process by “preserving narrative context, maintaining consistency across extended sequences, and giving creators more control over the creative process,” Zijian He, Utopai’s chief scientific officer, said in a statement.
“Our goal with PAI 2.0 is to facilitate a ‘Claude Code moment’ for the media generation,” he added.
Utopai has the support of NBA stars Carmelo Anthony and James Harden, who invested in the company through his production company Creative 7 and joined Utopai as a strategic partner. Harden also produced an animated short using the first version of PAI based on his beard in April.
Deadline first reported the show’s development.
