China’s first fully AI movie flops months after ‘worse than AI’ film makes millions

China’s first fully AI-generated feature film has bombed at the box office, just months after a bizarre animated movie mocked for looking “worse than AI” became a surprise hit.

Artificial intelligence might be taking over Hollywood, but getting actual humans into theater seats is proving to be a much bigger challenge.

Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as China’s first fully AI-generated theatrical feature, opened on October 23 with more than 10,000 screenings scheduled for its debut.

However, according to Cartoon Brew, the sci-fi movie earned just 1.21 million yuan (approximately $181,000) through October 26, despite costing more than $1.5 million to produce.

Even more awkwardly, production company Bona Film Group says nearly 100 people spent over two years making the film, despite its characters, voices, and backgrounds being AI-generated.

And the attendance figures are somehow even worse.

Sanxingdui: Future Past

According to China’s National Business Daily, screenings on October 24 and 25 attracted an average of just two viewers each. By October 26, the movie’s reported theater occupancy rate had fallen to a staggering 0.1%.

One person who attended a free preview told AFP she wouldn’t have paid to watch it.

“If AI generation can match the theatrical experience of Avatar, I think I would be willing to pay for it,” she said.

It’s another setback for AI-generated cinema after AMC pulled an AI movie from theaters earlier this year following backlash.

‘Worse than AI’ movie destroys AI film at box office

The flop is particularly amusing considering what happened just two months earlier. Back in August, Dexerto covered Niu Lai, a bizarre Chinese animated movie branded “worse than AI” that initially attracted only around 200 viewers.

Unlike Sanxingdui, the movie wasn’t AI-generated. It was made by director Xin Yumeng and his mother, screenwriter Sun Lifang, on a shoestring budget reportedly around $200.

@Shanghaidaily / X

Its crude animation, awkward character movements, and strange visuals became an online sensation, with audiences flocking to theaters to see just how bad it really was.

By August 20, Niu Lai had already made around $4 million, and that figure has since climbed to approximately $10 million, according to Cartoon Brew.

That means a movie ridiculed for looking worse than AI has earned over 50 times as much as China’s supposedly groundbreaking AI feature so far.

Of course, Sanxingdui has only just opened, and Niu Lai also suffered a disastrous debut before becoming a viral success.

Still, for now, the expensive AI experiment is being thoroughly outperformed by a movie made by a man, his mother, and some extremely questionable animation.