China's First Film Made Entirely With AI Falls Short at the Box Office

According to information from the French news agency AFP, the science fiction thriller Sanxingdui: Future Past It performed poorly at the Chinese box office, grossing only about $198,000 last week.

With over 10,000 screenings on its opening day, the film is touted as the first feature-length AI film to have a truly wide release and reported box office success across a large territory, serving as the first real commercial test of the technology. The production budget was 10 million yuan (approximately $1.5 million), and initial ticket sales represented only 12% of that amount.

Despite the outcome, the CEO of the production company Bona Film Group, Jiang Defu, defended the project in an interview with the Chinese portal Yuli. "We are the first to try it, the first to get a theatrical release permit and the first to be tested by the audience," he stated. The audience reception, however, was lukewarm. "In terms of quality, compared with human production, it still falls short", one viewer told the publication.

The 100-minute film was inspired by archaeological discoveries of the Sanxingdui civilization. The plot takes place in a future where a superintelligent AI spreads across the globe and humanity surrenders control to algorithms, plunging the world into crisis.

The failure of a single film, however, does not dictate the future of the technology. In China, AI already dominates the production of micro-dramas (online short films), with 95% being generated by artificial intelligence.

Other films of this type have had limited releases, such as the Indian musical Love you (2025) and the Malaysian Pirate Queen: Zheng Yi Sao (2026). In the United States, the first AI-generated feature film, Gods Don't Give Gifts, is scheduled for release on December 4th.