Antonio Banderas has signed to star in French filmmaker Paul Mignot’s historical drama Cortés, which will incorporate generative AI technology to tell the story of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire in the 16th century.
Banderas is playing the notorious Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés in the film, which is based on a screenplay by Nicholas Kazan.
Cortés is being produced by US-based AI-focused TV and film companies Utopai Studios and Ex Machina Studios.
Production is underway in Paris with additional shooting scheduled in Spain.
According to Utopai, the project “represents a decades-long effort to bring an unusually large and expensive historical story to life” and will use AI tools to “help overcome the scale and cost limitations that previously kept the project from the screen”.
Set in 1519, Cortés begins in Cuba, where a restless soldier hungry for glory seizes command of an expedition to the Yucatán and sails without permission. After landing on the coast of what is now Mexico, he meets an enslaved Indigenous woman and gifted linguist who becomes indispensable to his advance.
Mignot’s film credits include the 2023 Studiocanal historical feature Vaincre Ou Mourir. He has also directed ad campaigns for BMW, Porsche, L’Oréal, Louis Vuitton and Emporio Armani.
Kazan secured an Oscar nomination for his adapted screenplay for Reversal Of Fortune in 1990. His screenwriting credits also include Frances, Patty Hearst, Matilda, Fallen and Bicentennial Man.
Utopai Studio is handling sales and distribution in North America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, with Ex Machina Studios responsible for most of Europe, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand.
Ex Machina was launched in January 2026 by producer Marco Weber, filmmaker Martin Weisz, and Pluto TV co-founder and former Paramount streaming head Tom Ryan. It is premiering pilots for two science-fiction series produced with generative AI at TV market Mipcom this week.
Utopai Studios was launched in 2022 by former Google engineers Cecilia Shen and Jie Yang. It grew out of Cybever, which focused on 3D world creation and video generation, and was repositioned as a film and TV studio built around AI-enabled production. The company has developed PAI, a proprietary cinematic storytelling engine for long-form productions. It has 25 original projects in various stages of development and production, spanning theatrical, broadcast, streaming and digital releases, including three feature films.
“Cortés is exactly why we built Utopai Studios,” said Shen. “Our job is to build the production around that vision. Nicholas has written an extraordinary screenplay, Paul has a clear cinematic point of view and Antonio brings the humanity needed at the centre of it. We want to give them the ability to make the film they set out to make.”
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