Bona Film Group’s Sanxingdui: Future Past is billed by its producers as China’s first fully AI-generated theatrical feature. It had earned roughly RMB1.68 million ($253,000) at the Chinese box office through Monday, 2 November, its 11th day in theaters, Cartoon Brew reported, citing the China Movie Box Office dashboard.
Bona has said the film cost more than RMB10 million ($1.5 million), according to Cartoon Brew. On those figures the gross so far is under 17% of the stated cost, by our arithmetic.
The key insight: Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed by Bona as China’s first fully AI-generated theatrical feature, grossed about RMB1.68 million ($253,000) in 11 days, Cartoon Brew reported, which is under 17% of the more than RMB10 million Bona says it cost, by our arithmetic.
The film opened on 23 October with more than 10,000 screenings scheduled for its first day and earned RMB1.21 million ($181,000) through Monday, 26 October, Cartoon Brew reported. In the week to 2 November it added about $71,000, according to Cartoon Brew, which estimates the second-weekend decline at 60% or more.
Chinese business outlet Jiemian reported on 31 October that the film had grossed RMB1.47 million in eight days, that its share of screenings had fallen to 1% and its share of admissions to 0.6%, and that the Dengta tracker forecast a total of RMB3.066 million. Cartoon Brew put the most optimistic tracker estimates at around RMB3.07 million ($460,000).
The RMB1.68 million gross over 11 days works out to about RMB153,000 a day, by our arithmetic. Box office figures are gross ticket sales, not the share that reaches the studio.
Sanxingdui: Future Past box office through day 11, the Dengta full-run forecast, Bona’s stated production cost and Niu Lai’s box office to date, RMB millions, log scale. Sources: China Movie Box Office dashboard via Cartoon Brew (2 Nov 2026); Jiemian (31 Oct); Cartoon Brew (26 Oct). Box office is gross. ‘Under 17%’ is our arithmetic.
What Bona Says It Was Testing
Jiemian reports that the producers told media the film took a team of 70 to 80 people more than two years, with total investment above RMB10 million; Cartoon Brew, citing Bona, put the team at nearly 100 people over more than two years. According to Jiemian, the filmmakers said box office was not Bona’s first goal and that the film was meant to work out a viable path for AI into film production, including a cloud production platform where the whole crew works.
Jiemian also cites Bona’s 2025 annual report: revenue from AI film and TV work was about RMB2.3868 million, or 0.19% of the company’s total revenue, and the report describes that business as still at an early stage. Cartoon Brew, citing an Investment Times report from 29 October, says Bona has another AI science-fiction animated feature in production and a mythology-themed animated project in development.
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Connecting the Coverage
Cartoon Brew compares the film with Niu Lai, a shoestring animated feature made by director Xin Yumeng and his mother, which earned about RMB7,700 in its first ten days in August and has since grossed RMB64.29 million after clips spread online. Earlier this autumn we covered Grok’s 7-minute AI-made Odyssey episode and OpenAI weighing a Sora revival via a Katzenberg startup; as we read it, Sanxingdui is the first of these with a public theatrical box office to measure.
The Structural Read
As we read it, the film tested two different things: whether AI tools can carry a 100-minute feature through to theaters, and whether audiences will pay to see one. Bona says it was aiming at the first.
As we read the numbers, the box office so far is smaller than Bona’s whole 2025 AI film and TV revenue of about RMB2.39 million, as Jiemian reported it, so the test is still small next to the company’s total business.
Jamie Lang, Cartoon Brew, 26 October
“enthusiasm for the technology doesn’t necessarily translate into demand from moviegoers”
Three Implications
FOR STUDIOS Bona has another AI science-fiction animated feature in production and a mythology-themed project in development, according to Cartoon Brew.
FOR TRACKERS Jiemian reported the film’s share of screenings fell to 1% and its share of admissions to 0.6% after a week.
FOR THE COMPARISON Cartoon Brew contrasts it with Niu Lai, a shoestring animated film that earned about RMB7,700 in its first ten days and has since grossed RMB64.29 million.
The framework reads: “In any product cycle, there are two curves to follow.”
As we read it, the first curve here is what AI tools let a studio produce and the second is what moviegoers will pay for. The framework is the owner’s argument and does not discuss Bona, this film or box office.
Final box office is not in yet, and the figures here come from a dashboard as reported by Cartoon Brew and from Jiemian; we did not query the dashboard ourselves. How much of the film was made by AI tools is Bona’s description. The 17% figure uses the stated cost of more than RMB10 million, so the true share could be lower.
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Bona’s Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as China’s first fully AI-generated theatrical feature, grossed about RMB1.68 million ($253,000) in 11 days, Cartoon Brew reported, against a stated cost of more than RMB10 million. Bona says it was testing a production pipeline for AI films; its 2025 AI film and TV revenue was about RMB2.39 million, 0.19% of total revenue, according to Jiemian.
A note on sourcing. Box office figures are as reported by Cartoon Brew from the China Movie Box Office dashboard and by Jiemian; we did not query the dashboard ourselves. Figures from Jiemian are our translation from Chinese. Box office is gross ticket sales. Percentages and daily averages are our arithmetic. We did not contact Bona Film Group.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
