Hollywood
Seth MacFarlane releases the first look of his new film
MUMBAI: The writer of popular shows Family Guy, American Dad and Ted, Seth MacFarlane, has now written and directed A Million Ways to Die in the West.
The Western comedy stars Charlize Theron, Neil Patrick Harris, Amanda Seyfried and the writer himself. In the film, MacFarlane will be seen playing the role of a humble sheep farmer, Albert, who finds himself humiliated when his girlfriend (Seyfried) leaves him for the dapper gent who runs their town’s local “moustachery”. Luckily, he learns to find his courage when he meets a more age-appropriate love interest (Theron), the mysterious wife of an infamous outlaw.
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The photo for his Western comedy A Million Ways to Die in the West shows MacFarlane running into his ex (Amanda Seyfried) and her new love interest (Neil Patrick Harris). Charlize Theron is also in the photo for the film, in which she plays a gunslinger helping MacFarlane’s character find his courage. The film centers on a sheepherder (MacFarlane) who loses his girlfriend after chickening out of a gunfight. MacFarlane is directing the project, which is his followup to his raunchy comedy hit Ted.
MRC and Universal are co-financing A Million Ways to Die in the West, which is slated to hit theaters 30 May. MacFarlane 2012 directorial debut Ted made nearly $550million at the box office.
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.
