AI-focused production company Utopai is positioning itself as a way forward for kids producers who can’t get projects off the ground through traditional methods, as it teams up with writer Mike Bender to develop and produce an animated feature film based on the kids book The Most Serious Fart.

The California-based techco and studio’s film focuses on a fart named Siegfried with no sense of humor who sets out on a mission to change how people think about him and flatulence. The aim is to release the adaptation to theaters. Genius Cat Books published the 2023 book, which Chuck Dillon illustrated.

Bender, who co-wrote and co-produced Not Another Teen Movie, will write the film’s screenplay and also direct it—his first time directing a project. Russell Hollander, a producer and literary manager at Fourth Wall Management, is producing the film. He’s also developing an animated princess movie called Sign at Amazon MGM, according to his bio on the Fourth Wall site.

Why AI

Bender says he was drawn to Utopai after failing to secure a deal with a traditional animation studio. Bender and Hollander have spent “several years” developing this project, “but the scale and economics of a traditional animated production made it difficult to move forward without compromising the integrity of the film,” according to a release.

Utopai, which wants producers to use its AI tools, is using this context to frame itself as a solution for creatives when buyers won’t come on board a project.

The process

A human team will handle the “writing, design, direction, performance and final creative decisions” of the film, while using AI as a tool to assist with the production, according to a release. This team, as well as the film’s cast and theatrical plans, will be announced “at a later date,” Utopai said.

This is Utopai’s second kids content deal in as many months. Near the end of June, it signed a co-pro agreement with China’s Huace to make the family-friendly series Journey to the West: The Lost Five Hundred Years, based on the adventures of legendary character Sun Wukong, the Monkey King. The studios are self-financing that AI-animated series, which humans are writing and storyboarding. Utopai’s AI tools will be used to handle character continuity and action in the animation, as well as a way to re-use assets for future episodes, Utopai told Kidscreen at the time.

Potential challenges

It’s true that there are fewer commissions being handed out for kids projects. But going the AI route opens up other potential challenges. Utopai is going all-in on AI TV and film despite data from the likes of Luminate, which found that kids and young people in particular don’t like AI-generated content, and their dislike has only increased in recent months. And popular kids content creator Jorge R. Gutierrez recently abandoned his plans for an AI-generated series with Amazon Prime amid widespread online anger from both fans and fellow animators.

Plus, Utopai is aiming to release The Most Serious Fart to theaters, but there hasn’t been any sort of widespread exhibitor adoption of AI titles yet. Earlier this year, AMC Theaters was set to screen AI movies as part of an AI film festival, but then it refused to show the projects following consumer backlash.

Utopai has not yet responded to Kidscreen’s questions about how it plans to navigate these possible roadblocks.

Image courtesy of Utopai.