Sanxingdui: Future Past, Chinese blockbuster blending sci-fi and ancient fantasy epic, was a film of considerable importance not only for the local market: it is a relatively large production created entirely via generative artificial intelligence, with non-trivial costs but far lower than those of a similar feature film produced with traditional techniques, i.e., live-action shooting and hand-done digital post-production. The producing company Bona had, however, a bad surprise upon its debut at the Chinese box office.
The Chinese blockbuster created with Generative AI: what went wrong?
Directed by Yue Ming, the Bona-branded blockbuster Sanxingdui: Future Past has the peculiarity of having been entirely created via generative artificial intelligence by a staff of about seventy people, staying in front of their screens yet determined to defend the commitment necessary to tame AI and make it do what you saw in the trailer. The prospects for this kind of proposal were positive. China is experiencing an explosion of AI entertainment content, thanks to the boom of online micro-dramas, very short episodic fiction, apparently churned out in that way by about two-thirds (source Indiewire). Not only that: Bona had warmed up the engines with a microdrama series introducing the film, with the same title, boasting 200 million views. But something didn’t work.
Upon release, Sanxingdui: Future Past collected in China only $181,000, a figure insignificant even for the budget of $1,500,000, compact for this type of film but still not negligible. At this point one wonders: is the Chinese audience also wary of an AI production, when they have to pay to watch it? Or more simply the prologue of microdrama ended up subtracting value from the cinematic event? Certainly Bona does not give up, because work on another film produced with Generative Artificial Intelligence has already begun, namely Unplanned Operation in the Cold Moon. Even if this morning there is no cheerful news, it is evidently too early to draw conclusions, and we imagine that these investments are not entirely senseless regardless of marketing, given the popularity of online microdramas.
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