China's first AI-made theatrical film "Sanxingdui: Future Past" hits theaters, earning 317,000 yuan on its opening day

The first time an AI film has been tested on the big screen and by audiences in the form of a complete feature-length film, the market reaction has been calmer than expected. "Sanxingdui: Future Past" was released on October 23, and is the first domestic theatrical film made using AI technology to obtain a public screening permit from the China Film Administration. Although the stock of producer Bona Film Group once hit the daily limit up because of the film's release date announcement, presales were not ideal. As of 18:00 on October 24, the film's nationwide box office was 665,000 yuan, with AI predicting a total box office of 2.078 million yuan, still a considerable distance from the film's cost in the tens of millions. With the rapid advancement of AI film and television technology in recent years, AI short dramas have exploded in growth, and the first AI long-form drama, "Journey to the West: The Later Years," has already landed on satellite TV screens; now, "Sanxingdui: Future Past" has given Chinese cinema its own starting line on the new AI track. In the future, will more and more AI films appear in theaters? Can they truly drive a transformation in the film and television industry? "Witnessing history" in the theater On October 23, the first day of the film's release, the reporter went to the theater to watch it as soon as possible. As the Dragon Mark ended, the film displayed a pre-screening notice: all content and some sounds in this film are generated by artificial intelligence. From 2024, when the text-to-video model Sora sparked heated discussion about "how far AI films are from us," to now actually sitting in a theater watching an AI film, there is quite a feeling of "witnessing history." "Sanxingdui: Future Past" "Sanxingdui: Future Past" tells the story of a future in which humanity collectively connects to the AI "superbrain" and hands everything over to algorithms, only to fall into a global crisis, while the key to solving the predicament is hidden in the ancient carved symbols of the ancient Shu kingdom. The film runs 100 minutes and adopts a multi-threaded narrative. Several main characters have distinctive appearances and can basically remain consistent, and some supporting characters are eye-catching. However, perhaps due to the instability of generation, the characters' level of detail, including the naturalness of their performances, varies from scene to scene, giving a "sometimes good, sometimes bad" impression. Viewed as a whole, it also feels smoother and more refined the further it goes. "Sanxingdui: Future Past" "Sanxingdui: Future Past" The film's content brings together the strengths of AI, with sci-fi scenes reminiscent of "The Wandering Earth" and ancient-site exploration like "The Grave Robbers' Chronicles." From depictions such as the "descent of the divine bird" and large-scale sacrifices at the ancient Shu royal capital, one can see how readily AI handles grand scenes. Even more unusual is that the film boldly fabricates a meeting in which Can Cong, king of ancient Shu, visits Egypt, meets the Egyptian pharaoh King Set, and incidentally saves the young Horus. Just as contemporary netizens are keen on using AI to create fan works pairing characters from the Four Great Classical Novels, letting the four great ancient civilizations collide and communicate in an AI film creates a new kind of big-screen visual spectacle. The film's post-credits scene also imitates the behind-the-scenes footage of live-action films, with characters from the main feature turning into on-set directors, directing the shoot while complaining that "there's not enough time, the budget is over"—quite amusing. "Sanxingdui: Future Past" The film's creation went through two years of technological exploration, more than 1.2 million base images, and over a hundred full-film iterations and restarts. During production, AI handled generation and execution, while creative initiation and creative judgment were completed by the Bona AIGMS team according to film industry workflows. Qu Ji Xiaojiang, the film's executive producer and producer, said, "Tasks can be handed to AI, but judgment and responsibility cannot be outsourced along with them." Judging from the finished film, although there are to some extent problems such as inconsistent precision and confusing threads, overall it still feels like a "film" rather than a collection of AI short videos. A trailer for "Unplanned: Guanghan Operation," another AI film from Bona, also appeared before the feature. The market is calm; the problem lies outside AI Over the past year, the markets for AI comic dramas, AI short dramas, and AI long-form dramas have expanded rapidly, and the underlying logic of film and television production is being rewritten. Not long ago, China's first AIGC long-form drama, "Journey to the West: The Later Years," launched on Mango TV and landed in Hunan TV's prime time slot, and related stock prices rose accordingly. The producers said the significance of the project lies in completing the chain of "AI-generated 30-episode long-form content passing review, entering prime-time scheduling, and undergoing testing on mainstream large screens." On September 27, Bona Film Group announced the release date of its first AI theatrical film, "Sanxingdui: Future Past," and the company's stock price hit the daily limit up the next day. In the filmmakers' view, the film's release means the domestic AI toolchain is now capable of producing compliant feature-length theatrical films, and also provides a tangible reference sample for the commercialization of AI film and television. In addition, "Reunion Order," released in February this year, once used the slogan "China's first AIGC animated film," but did not market itself as the first AI theatrical film; as of now, the film's box office is 15.006 million yuan. This time, "Sanxingdui: Future Past" added the label "China's first AI hyper-realistic animated film." "Sanxingdui: Future Past" However, audiences did not respond with sufficient enthusiasm to the release of the first AI theatrical film. According to Beacon Professional Edition, "Sanxingdui: Future Past" had a first-day screening share of 2.9%, a box office of 317,000 yuan, and a 1.2% share of box office. "At present, the film's 'want to watch' data is relatively low and presale box office is not high. Audiences have not flocked to or boycotted it because it is the first AI theatrical film, and theaters have not done targeted promotion or special pricing for it either," said Zhou Zhenyu, co-founder of AI CINEMA, describing the market's treatment of AI theatrical films as "calm." He analyzed that the so-called first AI theatrical film represents a change in the technical implementation of a film product, and technology is not an important indicator for audiences when choosing a film. "Sanxingdui: Future Past" Liu Haibo, a professor at the Shanghai Film Academy of Shanghai University and president of the Shanghai Film Critics Society, has been following "Sanxingdui: Future Past" and believes there are multiple reasons behind the market's calm reaction. First, the two keywords "AI" and "big screen" together can excite the professional film-technology circle, but ordinary audiences are not "moved" by them. Second, the film was generated and produced by Boka Film Cloud Studio; all characters are original digital figures and do not include digital replicas of real actors, but that also means the film has no "stars" at all, and stars are often an important factor in drawing audiences into theaters—even when they appear as star-authorized AI figures. In addition, the title "Sanxingdui: Future Past" lacks appeal, and the first round of promotion also failed to give audiences enough information. "Sanxingdui may be a well-known cultural-tourism IP, but it leaves audiences completely confused about what story is being told, and 'Future Past' is even more baffling—at most it makes people guess that there are sci-fi or fantasy elements, and that element alone is not enough to draw people into theaters." As many viewers put it, "Whether it's AI or not doesn't matter, as long as the quality is high." Whether this AI film can beat the "AI predictions" still depends on the same things as traditional films. In Liu Haibo's view, word of mouth from the first batch of viewers has a greater influence on subsequent box office: "If word of mouth is good and feedback spreads that the story is exciting, the character development is successful, the visual effects are outstanding, or it offers something never seen before, that may pull some viewers into theaters." AI theatrical films will grow exponentially. When theaters opened at the beginning of this year, Zhou Zhenyu predicted that "films written and directed by AI will definitely appear on cinema schedules within five years," solving the film shortage. With the release of "Sanxingdui: Future Past," he judges that this trend is accelerating. "AI films show characteristics of low cost, high output, and diversification, and will become the mainstream of cinema scheduling in the future. Audiences do not care about the technical implementation method of the theater, but about the subject matter, content, and quality of the film, and theaters will also respond to audience demand by arranging high-quality AI film slates for them." "Sanxingdui: Future Past" Qu Ji Xiaojiang once revealed in an interview that the film's cost was in the tens of millions, already expensive in the AI film field, but if it were changed to live action, it might require 800 or 900 million yuan. She also admitted that at the beginning the film was not expected to reach theaters or have box office, and the greater hope was to prove to investors through release that "AI films are feasible" and open a new path. In Zhou Zhenyu's view, the important exploratory significance of "Sanxingdui: Future Past" lies in the fact that AI films have richer special-effects scenes, shorter production cycles, a greatly reduced number of participating creators, and lower investment costs, which will bring two clear industry changes: first, in the future more individual creators or small creative teams will be able to make AI theatrical films without relying on large capital, AI theatrical film works will show exponential growth, and some high-quality films will emerge from them. Because the age, experience, creativity, and imagination of numerous creators are more diverse, and AI tools provide more flexible creative space, the content of AI theatrical films, from subject matter to expressive techniques, will surpass traditional films and bring audiences a completely new viewing experience. AI short-drama producer Chen Lanyi is also creating her own theatrical film, "Returning Egrets." Although she has already made a name for herself in the booming AI short-drama field, she still invests a large amount of money and energy to fulfill her dream: "Filmmakers all enter the industry with the original intention of making theatrical films." She introduced that the film has an original script and is personally invested in, produced, and distributed by her, with a considerable portion completed using AI. "The film was filed as early as 2023, when I couldn't do it alone. After learning about AI technology, I felt the time had come. AI can greatly reduce costs and keep my entire project within a controllable budget. I also want to see how far AI and live action can be combined, to prepare for making more theatrical films and directing larger projects in the future." Regarding the first AI hyper-realistic theatrical film, "Sanxingdui: Future Past," she is following it and very much looks forward to its box-office performance. "Now all platforms are promoting AI feature films, and in this process I deeply feel that the era of one person making a film has arrived." "Sanxingdui: Future Past" Liu Haibo predicts that in the first half of 2027 a batch of AI feature-length works will surge toward audiences, including online and theatrical films and long-form dramas. "AI will intervene heavily in film production, and both pure AI films and films combining AI with live-action shooting will increase, because this is a new production technology—just as digital replaced film, more efficient and more profitable methods will certainly replace less profitable ones. A revolution in film productivity is underway." Recently, he has participated in a series of AI short-film judging events and has become increasingly aware that AI is only a technology for realizing visual presentation; in the final analysis, what moves audiences is still story, and that is something AI cannot create originally. "Whether a work is good depends on the person behind the AI, on their understanding of life, their understanding of human nature, and their creativity in storytelling."