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

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The first time an AI film has faced the big screen and audiences in the form of a complete feature-length film, the market reaction was calmer than expected. "Sanxingdui: Future Past" was released on October 23 and is China's first 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, presales were not ideal. As of 18:00 on October 24, the film's nationwide box office was 665,000 yuan, and AI predicted a total box office of 2.078 million yuan, still a considerable distance from the film's cost in the tens of millions of yuan.

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 drama, "Post-Journey to the West," 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 cinemas? Can they truly drive a transformation in the film and television industry?

"Witnessing history" in the cinema

On October 23, the first day of the film's release, the reporter went to the cinema to watch "Sanxingdui: Future Past" at the first opportunity. As the Dragon Mark ended, the film displayed a pre-screening notice: all content and some sounds in this film were 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 cinema watching an AI film, there is a distinct 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 uses multi-threaded storytelling. 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 generative sampling, the characters' level of detail, including the naturalness of their performances, varies across different scenes, giving a "sometimes good, sometimes bad" impression. Viewed as a whole, the film also feels increasingly smooth and refined as it progresses.

"Sanxingdui: Future Past"

The film's content plays to AI's strengths, with sci-fi scenes reminiscent of "The Wandering Earth" and archaeological adventures like "The Lost Tomb." From depictions such as the "descent of the divine bird" and large-scale sacrifices at the ancient Shu royal capital, it is clear that AI is adept at handling grand scenes. Even more unusual, the film boldly fabricates a story 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 fiction pairing characters from the Four Great Classical Novels, having 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 technical 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 plot threads, overall it still feels like a "film" rather than a collection of AI short videos. A trailer also appeared for "Unplanned: Guanghan Operation," another AI film from Bona.

Over the past year, the markets for AI comic dramas, AI short dramas, and AI long dramas have expanded rapidly, and the underlying logic of film and television production is being rewritten. Not long ago, China's first AIGC long drama, "Post-Journey to the West," 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 proving out the chain of "AI-generated 30-episode long-form content passing review, entering prime-time scheduling, and undergoing testing on mainstream big 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 view of the filmmakers, the film's release means that 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 it was not marketed as the first AI theatrical film; as of now, the film's box office is 15.006 million yuan. This time, "Sanxingdui: Future Past" has 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 total 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 cinemas have not done targeted promotion or special pricing for it," 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 long followed "Sanxingdui: Future Past," and he believes there are multiple reasons behind the market's muted response. First, the two keywords "AI" and "big screen" combined can excite the professional film technology circle, but ordinary audiences are not "won over." Second, the film was generated and produced by Boka Film Cloud Studio, and all characters are original digital figures, containing no digital replicas of real actors—but that also means the film has no "stars," and stars are often an important factor in drawing audiences into cinemas, even if they participate by licensing AI likenesses. In addition, the title "Sanxingdui: Future Past" lacks appeal, and the first round of promotion and distribution 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 there are sci-fi or fantasy elements, and that element alone is not enough to attract people into cinemas."

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, the word of mouth from the first batch of viewers is more likely to affect 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 could pull some viewers into cinemas."

When the cinema opened earlier this year, Zhou Zhenyu predicted that "films written and directed by AI will definitely make it onto cinema schedules within five years," solving the film shortage problem. 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 mainstream in cinema schedules in the future. Audiences do not care about the technical implementation method of cinemas, but about the film's subject matter, content, and quality, and cinemas 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, which is already considered 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 she hoped more to prove to investors through its release that "AI films are feasible" and open up 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-scale creative teams will be able to make AI theatrical films without relying on large capital, AI theatrical film works will grow exponentially, 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 splash in the booming AI short drama field, she still invests a large amount of money and energy to fulfill her dream: "The original intention of filmmakers entering the industry is to make theatrical films." She introduced that the film is an original script, 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." She is following the first AI hyper-realistic theatrical film, "Sanxingdui: Future Past," and is very much looking 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 film 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 higher-margin methods will definitely replace lower-margin ones. A revolution in film productivity is underway." Recently, he has participated in a series of AI short film judging work, and has become increasingly aware that AI is only a technology for realizing visual presentation; in the final analysis, what moves audiences is still the story, and this is something AI cannot create originally. "Whether a work is good depends on the person behind the AI, on his understanding of life, his understanding of human nature, and his creativity with stories."

(Source: Shangguan News) Mid-article embedded advertisement