Utopai Studios, an entertainment studio focused on artificial intelligence, has appointed Hans Ku as its chief product officer.
Ku will oversee the studio's business development, research, engineering, and product teams. The new executive will report directly to Chief Executive Officer Cecilia Shen. Ku is tasked with expanding the startup's artificial intelligence technology and its production platform, PAI, across the company's film and television slate.
Previously, Ku served as the vice president of AI and engineering in the office of technology enablement at Disney. During his time at Disney, he facilitated the connection between Disney and OpenAI teams for a brief $1 billion deal to license characters for the Sora video generator.
“Hans knows what it takes to move emerging technology from experimentation into an organization operating at global scale,” Shen said in a statement.
Shen added, “We are building a global studio for a new era of entertainment, and Hans will be central to scaling the technology and infrastructure that make that possible.”
Ku, who also held roles at DreamWorks Animation and Walt Disney Feature Animation, stated that Utopai “has the opportunity to build something fundamentally different” because of the close cooperation between the studio and product divisions.
“My focus is on building PAI alongside filmmakers, giving them better tools to explore ideas, refine their work, and bring their creative vision to the screen while keeping creative decisions in their hands,” Ku said. Utopai recently secured $60 million in funding at a $1 billion valuation.
The studio's current projects include a live-action film titled “Cortés” starring Antonio Banderas.
Other upcoming works include a live-action feature called “Half Moon” and an AI-assisted animated adaptation of “The Most Serious Fart,” a 2023 children’s book by Mike Bender.
The company also partnered with the Chinese production firm Huace to create a fully AI-generated version of “Journey to the West: The Lost Five Hundred Years.”
The studio expects to release “Cortés,” “The Most Serious Fart,” and “Half Moon” sometime next year.
