China's first AI film to obtain a public screening license, "Sanxingdui: Future Past," hits theaters

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On October 23, "Sanxingdui: Future Past," the first AI hyper-realistic theatrical film in China to obtain a public screening license, officially opened in cinemas. From single-shot AI creation to the construction of full-process virtual film sets and the continuous monetization of digital assets, AI is rewriting the production model of the film and television industry and opening up a new commercialization track.

"Sanxingdui: Future Past" uses ancient Shu carved symbols as the story's thread, telling a science fiction story that spans ancient times, the present, and the future. The characters in the film are all original digital figures; no digital replicas of live-action actors were made. How the story unfolds, how the characters act, and how the camera tells the story are decided by the creative team; for content involving Sanxingdui, archaeological experts participated in the research and verification.

Before making the film, Bona Film Group had already used the same IP for a short-drama experiment. According to data provided by the project team, the 13-episode short drama "Sanxingdui: Future Apocalypse," launched in 2024, has been viewed more than 200 million times across all platforms. The team involved in producing the short drama subsequently joined the film project, bringing the technology and collaboration experience accumulated earlier into the feature-length film.

Going from a short drama to a feature film is not just a change in length. A short drama can present images at a faster pace, while a 100-minute film requires character appearances, prop details, actions, and scenes to remain consistent across shots. A generative model may produce a beautiful single image, but it may not be able to keep the same bronze artifact in its original form in the next scene, nor may it be able to make a character's expressions and actions connect naturally. This technical bottleneck is not unique to Bona.

Industry insiders say that AI often handles with ease content that is highly difficult in traditional film and television, such as large-scale explosion scenes and complex action design; yet seemingly simple details such as a scar on a person's face are very difficult to keep consistent throughout. To address these problems, the project team generated more than 1.2 million base images in total and carried out hundreds of iterations on the entire film, with image stability, characters' micro-expressions, and the continuity of action and time-space all being key points of repeated adjustment.

The film's scheduling of its release date takes on clearer significance when viewed against the broader industry backdrop. The "Micro Short Drama Creation Guidelines" for the first quarter of 2026 released by the China Netcasting Services Association show that in the first quarter of 2026, about 128,000 micro short dramas were launched across the industry, equivalent to 1,422 micro short dramas going online every day and 59 every hour, with industry production capacity reaching a new height. Among them, about 122,000 were AI micro short dramas, accounting for more than 95%; with the advantages of low cost, high efficiency, and scale, AI micro short dramas have become the main force in current micro short drama content production capacity.

At its 2026 autumn iQIYI Enjoy Conference, iQIYI announced an "All in AI" strategy to empower feature-length film and television production and launched the "Prairie Fire Plan," with plans to release more than 40 AIGC films throughout 2026, and AIGC films will account for 50% of projects subsequently set up for production.

Industry insiders analyze that AI has shifted film and television production from an integrated and collaborative industrial process to a lightweight "human-machine co-creation" model centered on creativity, but story judgment, artistic aesthetics, and production organization still need to be completed by filmmakers. "What technology lowers is the cost of execution, not the threshold for creation."

(Source: China Securities Journal) Middle of article body Embedded advertisement