Just as the first chapter of Elon Musk’s AI-produced version of The Odyssey was turning off viewers in the United States, the first feature-length AI-generated movie widely released in China was flopping at the box office.
The film, the sci-fi thriller Sanxingdui: Future Past, was released last week and only grossed an estimated $198,000, according to the French wire service Agence France-Presse.
There have been several other AI-generated feature films in limited release in other countries. But with 10,000-plus opening-day screenings, Future Past marks the first long-form AI film to get a true wide release with reported box office numbers in a major territory, arguably marking the first real commercial test of the technology for feature-length projects. The film’s early ticket sales were reportedly about 12 percent of its 10 million yuan budget (about $1.5 million).
According to the AFP, Jiang Defu, CEO of the film’s production company Bona Film Group, told Chinese film outlet Yuli the film nonetheless represented an important experiment. “We are the first to try it, the first to get a theatrical release permit, and the first to be tested by the audience. I think that is not easy at all.”
One moviegoer told the outlet, “In terms of quality, compared with human production, it still falls short.”
That said, the technology is hardly bound to the fate of a single film. In China, AI has taken over the production of short online films (microdramas), with 95 percent being AI generated, according to Fortune. A feature length AI-generated hit seems only a matter of time.
Future Past is a 100-minute film inspired by archaeological finds from the Sanxingdui civilization. Appropriately enough, the film is about a future when a super-intelligent AI has spread across the globe, and humanity has handed control to algorithms, which plunges the world into a crisis.
Previous feature-length movies that gained limited release include India’s Love You, a 95-minute musical, released in May 2025, and Malaysia’s Pirate Queen: Zheng Yi Sao, which was released in January.
In the United States, the first AI-generated feature film is scheduled for limited release Dec. 4. The film is called Gods Don’t Give Gifts, distributed by Fable and created by YouTuber Gossip Goblin, and is an R-rated anthology of four sci-fi stories.
