Hollywood
Vin Diesel inks first-look deal with Universal Television
MUMBAI: Vin Diesel’s One Race Television is partnering with Universal Television on a multi-year, first-look production deal.
One Race, founded in 1995 by writer, director, producer and actor Diesel, has produced the four highest-grossing films in the seven film Fast franchise — Furious 7, Fast and Furious 6, Fast Five as well as Fast & Furious. The franchise has earned $3.9 billion at the worldwide box-office. He has directed Multifacial, Strays and Los Bandoleros.
Previously, One Race launched multiple franchises in the action genre, including the science-fiction thriller Pitch Black and the two follow-up films, Chronicles of Riddick and Riddick, along with the hit xXx and the follow up xXx: Return of Xander Cage, in pre-production now. Diesel’s business acumen also extends to the gaming universe, where his Tigon Studios produced three critically acclaimed console titles including Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay and original property The Wheelman.
One of the first offerings going to market will be a television series complement to Diesel and writer/director David Twohy’s highly successful sci-fi franchise, Riddick.
“In addition to being a huge star for our feature division, Vin is a true creative force as a producer. After sitting down with him and his team at One Race Television, it’s clear he will now also be an incredible asset to both the network and our television studio. We feel really fortunate to be in business with, not only an international powerhouse, but a truly thoughtful and passionate producer,” said NBC Entertainment president Jennifer Salke.
Diesel has hired industry veteran and former Fox Broadcasting Co senior vice president – event series Shana C. Waterman as head of television. Waterman will oversee development and production under this multi-year, first-look deal.
“I have dreamt about expanding the One Race brand into television and now we’ve found the perfect creative partners in Bob, Jen and the team at Universal Television,” Diesel said. “Shana is an incredible addition to this team.”
“I’m incredibly excited to join the exceptionally smart, innovative team Vin’s built at One Race,” Waterman said. “Both he and fellow producer Samantha Vincent, alongside their partners at Universal, have grown a formidable global brand ready-made for this diverse and highly creative time in the world of television.”
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.
