Sanxingdui: Future Past, hailed as China's first fully AI-generated theatrical feature film, has performed poorly at the box office since its public release on October 23, dampening the fervor surrounding the AI filmmaking trend.
Produced by Bona Film Group, the film had a production budget exceeding ten million yuan and took nearly 100 people two years to complete. Characters, backgrounds, and voiceovers were largely generated using AI. On its opening day, it had over 10,000 screenings, ensuring ample exposure.
However, after several days of release, its cumulative box office reached only 1.21 million yuan, with an average of just 2 viewers per screening and an attendance rate as low as 0.1%. Many audiences who attended preview screenings stated outright that they would not pay to see this film in theaters.
Ironically, just two months ago, the domestic animated film Niu Lai played out a completely opposite script.
This work, created with almost no budget by just the director and his mother, initially suffered from poor box office results. However, it gained popularity online thanks to its rough and quirky visuals, riding on memes and organic sharing by netizens, ultimately achieving a counterattack with a box office total of 64.29 million yuan—more than fifty times the revenue of this AI film.
Of course, these two works cannot be simply equated; Niu Lai also experienced a long cold start before becoming popular. But the current outcome clearly demonstrates that even with the sustained hype around AI technology,Audiences buy tickets to experience stories and emotions; technical gimmicks do not directly translate into box office appeal. Currently, many film companies in the industry continue to invest in AI feature-length projects, but the commercial path for AI films remains full of uncertainties.