Sanxingdui: Future Past Flops at 1.7m Yuan — SkimNews
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- Sanxingdui: Future Past, China’s first fully AI-generated movie, earned 1.7m yuan (£191,000) at the box office despite costing its producer “tens of millions” to make.
- Sanxingdui: Future Past generated every visual and some sound effects with AI before human editors assembled the film; The Guardian found its algorithm-driven, ancient-Egypt story confusing and judged it a bit worse than plenty of human-made action flicks.
- Bowen, the production company’s in-house AI scriptwriting tool, was evident in lines such as a “superbrain superintelligence” costing “$10m dollars a month to subscribe to” and “Avoid that thing!” before a foretold plane crash.
- Yu Yaqin said the flop came down to the movie not being entertaining, while arguing that AI films would keep being produced in China because investors place a high value on AI.
- China’s AI-generated microdrama industry now uploads tens of thousands of one- to three-minute dramas to streaming platforms each month and is worth an estimated $3bn; viewers can watch similar mobile content for free instead of paying 50 yuan (£5.60) at the cinema.
- A Beijing screenplay developer said most projects she was offered over the past few months were for AI films, which investors favor as cheaper: work that once took 100 people can now be done by five, leaving the rest without jobs.
- One state media commentary called the film “riddled with flaws and imperfections” while arguing that it might “go down in cinematic history as the starting point of what came next.”
Why it matters: Chinese investors are backing AI films because five people can now do work that once took 100. A Beijing screenplay developer said other workers will lose jobs, making Sanxingdui’s weak 1.7m-yuan return a warning that cost-cutting alone does not create the cinema experience audiences will pay for.
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