Hollywood
‘Pitch Perfect 2’ to release in Indian theatres on 3 July
MUMBAI: Anna Kendrick and the rest of the Barden Bellas are back for another musical ride in Pitch Perfect 2. However, one person who didn’t return for the sequel is director Jason Moore with actor Elizabeth Banks deciding to take over the reigns and make her directorial debut with the sequel Pitch Perfect 2.
Banks, who not only acted but also produced the 2012 sleeper hit Pitch Perfect left the lead actress, Academy award nominee Anna Kendrick quite perplexed.
Talking about working with Banks, Kendrick stated, “She’s certainly got better legs than Jason Moore! When I found out Jason wasn’t doing it, I was a little upset because he had created the first movie and helped me create Beca. So for the first couple weeks on Pitch Perfect 2, I kept forgetting he wasn’t there. Since Banks only produced the first one, I would sometimes get confused when she would be directing a scene. It was an adjustment, but I think she did a fantastic job.”
The movie releases in Indian theaters on 3 July, 2015.
Hollywood
Utopai Studios partners Huace to deploy PAI for long form content
Deal includes revenue sharing as Huace adopts AI engine across global ops
MUMBAI: Lights, camera… algorithm, the script just got a silicon co-writer. In a move that signals how storytelling itself is being re-engineered, U.S.-based Utopai Studios has partnered China’s Huace Film & TV Co. Ltd. to bring artificial general intelligence into the heart of long-form content creation.
At the centre of the deal is PAI, Utopai’s cinematic storytelling system, which Huace will deploy as a core engine across its production pipeline from development and creative iteration to global localisation. The partnership includes a large-scale annual usage commitment from Huace, alongside a usage-based revenue-sharing model, underscoring both ambition and commercial confidence on both sides.
For Huace, one of China’s largest film and television companies, the bet is not on automation alone but on scale with control. With distribution spanning over 200 countries and a presence across more than 20 international platforms, including Netflix and YouTube, the company brings a vast content ecosystem where even marginal efficiency gains can translate into significant output shifts. Its extensive TV IP library further positions it as fertile ground for AI-assisted storytelling workflows.
The choice of PAI follows what Huace described as a rigorous evaluation of existing AI tools, many of which remain limited to fragmented use cases such as video generation or editing. What tipped the scales, according to the company, was PAI’s ability to handle long-form narrative complexity maintaining continuity, structure, and creative coherence across entire story arcs rather than isolated clips.
Utopai, for its part, is using the partnership to anchor its international expansion strategy, pitching PAI as an enterprise-ready system built for customisation, privacy, and regulatory adaptability across markets. That positioning becomes particularly relevant as global media companies increasingly scrutinise how AI integrates into proprietary workflows.
The timing is notable. Earlier this month, Utopai upgraded PAI to support three-minute 4K video generation and advanced multi-shot sequencing features designed to tackle one of AI storytelling’s biggest hurdles: consistency across scenes.
What emerges is not just another tech collaboration, but a glimpse into how the grammar of filmmaking could evolve. Because if stories were once crafted frame by frame, the next chapter might just be coded scene by scene.
