On October 23, 2026, the Chinese film “Sanxingdui: Tales of the Future” will hit theaters nationwide, becoming the country’s first feature-length film to receive a public screening license from the National Film Administration, to be produced entirely with AI involvement, and to be officially shown in commercial cinemas. The film runs 100 minutes, features all-original digital characters with no live-action actors, and is produced by Bona Film Group and brought to life by the AIGMS Production Center, with Jiang Defu serving as CEO and Qu Jixiaojiang as head of the production center.
The film was submitted for review in September 2025 and passed censorship. On its opening day, October 23, it accounted for 2.9% of all screenings, earning RMB 317,000 at the box office; as of the evening of October 25, its cumulative box office stood at approximately RMB 1.18 million. Production took two years, involving a team of nearly one hundred people, who generated over 1.2 million AI-generated base images, with a waste-to-output ratio of nearly 600:1. Many shots required manual frame-by-frame verification to address inherent video‑model shortcomings, such as character consistency. As “Chief Technical Support,” Shengshu Technology’s Vidu provided computing power, technical guidance, and specialized services for the underlying engine, fostering deep integration between AI and traditional film‑industry workflows.
Despite the groundbreaking nature of its technical implementation, the film was explicitly defined by its creators as a “pilot” validation project—its core objective being to streamline the entire workflow, from project approval and production through review, scheduling, distribution, and theatrical release, rather than to maximize box-office returns. The production team proactively reduced their revenue-sharing percentage, urged theaters to keep ticket prices low (settling at 20 yuan), and premiered the film in CINITY IMAX auditoriums to highlight its technical limitations. Audience feedback was typically divided: while many acknowledged its significance as a technological milestone, most felt that the current quality still falls short of justifying a paid viewing experience—“not good enough to make one overlook the price, nor bad enough to render it entirely unworthy of watching.”
The report notes that AI has not reduced labor costs; instead, it has given rise to new roles such as “consistency validation” and “digital character casting.” Graphics cards and other hardware have become critical production assets. Meanwhile, the irreplaceable role of directors in shaping emotion, microexpressions, and narrative pacing has been repeatedly underscored. The film’s journey echoes the early, challenging phase of China’s first digital feature, “Grassland in the Sky,” released in 2002—when technological transition is often fraught with difficulties. Ultimately, what will truly determine the future of AI-driven cinema is not whether it can generate visuals, but whether it can tell a story that resonates with audiences.