First AI theatrical feature film "Sanxingdui: Future Past" earns only 1.229 million yuan at the box office in 4 days

Recently, China's first AI full-process theatrical feature film to receive the "Dragon Seal" approval, "Sanxingdui: Future Past," landed in theaters nationwide. As of the evening of October 26, the film's cumulative box office was only 1.229 million yuan. It had 8,331 screenings, its attendance rate fell to 0.2%, and the average number of viewers per screening was 0.3. Against a production cost in the tens of millions of yuan, the producers' revenue share may be only about 800,000 yuan, with less than one-tenth of the funds recovered through theatrical release.

The capital market's reaction was equally sharp. Bona Film Group hit the daily limit down during trading on October 26, closing down 10.06% at 5.54 yuan, with a total market value of 7.615 billion yuan. On the same day, AI comic-drama concept stocks weakened collectively, with Ciwen Media hitting the limit down and Guomai Culture falling more than 10% at one point during trading.

The first theatrical AI film meets a cold reception: 1.23 million yuan in box office in 4 days

On October 23, the first AI full-process theatrical feature film to receive the "Dragon Seal" approval, "Sanxingdui: Future Past," landed in theaters worldwide. The film runs 100 minutes, is a science fiction animated feature, and was produced by Bona Film Group, with Jiang Defu as producer and chief producer, Qu Ji Xiaojiang as executive producer and producer, and Yue Ming as screenwriter and director. All characters in the film are original digital figures and do not involve digital replication of real actors.

Producer Qu Ji Xiaojiang revealed in an interview with the media that the production cost of "Sanxingdui: Future Past" exceeded 10 million yuan. At the same time, chief producer Jiang Defu said the team followed the film industry production process and set up professional divisions of labor including screenwriting, directing, producing, art design, cinematography, lighting, sound effects, and editing.

As China's first AI film, it once attracted extremely high enthusiasm from the capital market. On September 28, the first trading day after the film's release date was set, Bona Film Group recorded a one-line limit-up; subsequently, on October 9 and October 12, the stock price secured two more limit-ups in succession. Within just six trading days, Bona Film Group hit the limit three times, and the company's total market value climbed from about 8.7 billion yuan to a peak of 10.5 billion yuan.

Maoyan professional data shows that as of the evening of October 26, "Sanxingdui: Future Past" had been in release for 4 days, with cumulative box office of only 1.229 million yuan. It had 8,331 screenings, accounting for 2.3% of screenings, yet its attendance rate had fallen to 0.2%, with an average of 0.3 viewers per screening.

Previously, Beacon Professional Edition predicted the film's first-day box office at 311,000 yuan and final total box office at 2.169 million yuan, based on which the producers' revenue share was estimated at only about 800,000 yuan. Calculated according to the officially disclosed production cost in the tens of millions of yuan, the amount Bona recovers through theatrical revenue sharing may be less than one-tenth of the production cost.

The novelty of the technology failed to conceal the shortcomings at the core of the narrative, which also confirms the stringent requirements of the big theatrical screen for content quality.

The cold reception of "Sanxingdui: Future Past" also reflects the current commercialization dilemma of AI film and television: it can reduce costs but struggles to generate revenue, which is also intuitively reflected in Bona's financial report data. The financial report shows that in the first half of 2026, Bona's AI film and television drama business recorded revenue of 1.9323 million yuan, with corresponding operating costs of only 61,300 yuan, and a gross margin of 96.83%. By comparison, in the same period the company's traditional film business gross margin was 35.51%, while the gross margin of the cinema and theatrical distribution business had fallen to -3.99%.

Although the AI business has demonstrated strong cost-reduction capability, its scale remains too small. In the first half of the year, Bona's total revenue was 458 million yuan, with the AI film and television drama business contributing only 0.42%. Bona also emphasized that the company's AI film and television drama business is still in an early stage of development, and the relevant technical paths, business models, and market acceptance still need continuous verification.

Why does the logic that works for short dramas fail on the big screen?

In the first five months of 2026, the market size of China's AI drama and comic-drama sector had exceeded 22 billion yuan, with the full-year figure expected to reach 40 billion yuan, and the number of domestic AI short drama users exceeded 600 million in the first half of the year. The expansion on the supply side was even more astonishing: on the Douyin platform alone, 221,900 new AI dramas and comic-dramas were added in the first half of the year. Production quotes fell from 5,000 yuan per minute at the beginning of the year all the way to a few hundred yuan.

An efficiency model built on low marginal costs and using traffic revenue sharing as the recovery path has been repeatedly verified on mobile devices, but this model is difficult to transfer to cinemas.

The few-hundred-yuan-per-minute quotes for assembly-line short dramas correspond to templated production capacity and flaws that users can swipe past on their phones; however, once resolution, modeling precision, and character consistency are raised to theatrical screening standards, marginal costs are no longer on the same order of magnitude. Based on estimates for "Sanxingdui: Future Past," a cost in the tens of millions spread over 100 minutes amounts to more than 100,000 yuan per minute, a price gap of hundreds of times compared with mobile comic-dramas.

In addition, short dramas mainly rely on "free viewing + paid traffic acquisition + platform revenue sharing," and the audience pays only attention, so on small screens there is sufficient tolerance for visual flaws; but films are "pay first, watch later," and a ticket costing tens of yuan requires every frame to be worthy of the ticket price. Flaws that can be tolerated on small screens, such as lip-sync, consistency, and expressions, are magnified exponentially on the big screen.

An AI short drama screenwriter also told a reporter from the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily that live-action films also have star power, and fans are willing to pay for their favorite idols. But "Sanxingdui: Future Past" consists entirely of original digital figures, and audiences mainly went for the "first AI film"; one-time curiosity cannot sustain repeat purchases.

In their view, AI efficiently replaces the image generation stage, but script structure, emotional rhythm, and directorial judgment have not been replaced in tandem. Once the novelty of the "first AI theatrical feature film" is exhausted during the opening weekend, subsequent box office loses any support to carry it forward. "In AI film and television, story is the core. If AI films want to cross over into commercialization, they still need to tell a good story first," the screenwriter stressed to the reporter.

Faced with the cold reception of the first AI film, the screenwriter remains optimistic about the industry: "AI is the trend, and there should be more attempts in the future. When web dramas first came out, their production was also jokingly called 'fifty cents,' and after they reached scale later, they gradually became mature and refined. We still need to give the AI film and television industry some time to develop."

It is worth noting that the industry side has not slowed down because the first film met a cold reception. It is reported that Bona's second AI film, "Unplanned: Guanghan Operation," has already been approved and started production, and the mythological animation "Chinese Strange Tales: Luosha Sea Market" is also on the schedule; ST Huayi has also announced the AI theatrical film "Euler's Identity."

From the box office performance of the first AI film, it is also easy to see that AI technology can currently effectively lower production costs, but the business model of theatrical films still requires the content itself to be attractive enough for audiences to be willing to go to the cinema and pay for tickets. Only by crossing the threshold of content quality can AI films gradually move toward commercialization.

(Source: Cailian Press) Mid-article embedded advertisement