China’s first fully AI-generated film struggles at the box office

“Sanxingdui: Future Past,” billed as China’s first fully AI-generated feature film, has performed poorly after opening in cinemas on Oct. 23. The science-fiction film took about $181,000 at the box office despite a release on more than 10,000 screens, equating to less than $20 per screen. The result followed weak demand before release. Maoyan data cited by Channel News Asia showed more than 10,000 opening-day screenings were scheduled, but presales stood at about 65,000 yuan, or $9,700, on the Thursday evening before the debut. Bona Film Group’s chief executive, Jiang Defu, acknowledged the lukewarm response, saying the experiment had not been easy. The film reportedly cost more than 10 million yuan, about $1.5 million, to make, leaving its theatrical revenue far short of the reported production budget. Nearly 100 people worked on it for more than two years, undercutting any implication that the production was made without substantial human involvement. Bona had announced in September that the project used AI throughout production, but said a professional team remained responsible for the creative concept, narrative direction and final artistic decisions. AI chiefly generated images and other content, while the team manually adjusted details such as characters’ micro-expressions frame by frame to reduce visual inconsistencies. Its actors, voices and backdrops were AI-generated, using original digital characters rather than replicas of real performers. Production drew on more than 1.2 million source images and involved more than 100 full-film iterations, with the aim of meeting theatrical standards for 4K pictures, high-dynamic-range colour and multichannel sound. The 100-minute story combines ancient Shu civilization with a future in which super-intelligent AI spreads globally and people surrender decisions to algorithms, precipitating a systemic crisis. It proposes that symbols on Sanxingdui bronzeware may contain binary code that could not have originated 3,000 years ago. Audience reaction suggests that the technical premise alone did not supply a commercial draw. Iris Yang, who attended a free preview, said she would not have paid for the film because of its quality, adding that she might pay if AI generation matched the theatrical experience of “Avatar.” Independent AI director Zhang Jun similarly said an AI-generated label would not automatically persuade audiences to buy tickets. The weak theatrical performance comes even as AI-generated short dramas found a vast audience online: they received more than 200 billion views on Douyin in September. That contrast is between short-form viewing and paid cinema, rather than a direct measure of demand for feature films. Jiang described “Sanxingdui: Future Past” as the first project to try the approach, obtain a theatrical release permit and be tested by audiences.