A $1.5 million experiment in fully machine-made cinema earned about $180,000, and the gap says a lot about where AI entertainment actually works.

The screens were there. The audience was not. Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as China’s first fully AI-generated feature to reach theaters, took in about $180,000 through Monday, Fortune reported, citing ticketing platform Maoyan, after opening on Oct. 23 with more than 10,000 screenings on the schedule.

The math is unforgiving. Bona Film Group spent more than 10 million yuan, roughly $1.5 million, and nearly 100 people worked on the film for over two years, according to Cartoon Brew. Every actor, voice and backdrop was generated by AI. When AFP visited an opening-day screening, it counted four people in the room, The Next Web reported.

Bona is calling it a test, not a failure. “We are the first to try it, the first to get a theatrical release permit, and the first to be tested by the audience,” Jiang Defu, the company’s chief operating officer, told the Chinese outlet Yuli, per Fortune.

The contrast with short-form video is stark. More than 95% of the 120,000-plus microdramas released in China in the first quarter were AI-generated, according to Caixin figures cited by Fortune, with production costs falling to as little as $3,000. Viewers will scroll through machine-made drama on a phone. Paying for a theater seat is a different decision, and USC professor Stanley Rosen told Fortune that AI features may fare better on streaming than in cinemas.

That is where the West is testing the idea. Prime Video has already released Castle Walls, a Turkish melodrama from producer Ay Yapım with much of its visual work done by AI, and acquired an AI-generated spinoff film of the crime series Çukur, The Ankler reported. An AI-generated science fiction feature, Gods Don’t Give Gifts, is due in U.S. theaters on Dec. 4, per The Next Web.

Those releases now have a benchmark to beat. For studios weighing whether AI can turn a modest budget into a theatrical event, the first answer out of China is a cautionary one: novelty fills a schedule, but it does not sell tickets.

Sources

• Fortune – China’s first AI-generated film to get a theatrical release flops at the box office – https://fortune.com/2026/10/27/china-first-ai-film-sanxingdui-box-office/
• The Next Web – China’s first all-AI feature film cost $1.5m and has made about $180,000 – https://thenextweb.com/news/sanxingdui-china-first-ai-film-box-office
• Cartoon Brew – China’s First AI Feature Flops At The Chinese Box Office – https://www.cartoonbrew.com/box-office-report/chinese-ai-film-sanxingdui-future-past-box-office-flop-268426.html
• The Ankler – Amazon Has TV’s First Fully AI-Made Series. There’s No Going Back – https://theankler.com/amazon-has-tvs-first-fully-ai-made-series-theres-no-going-back/

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