❯ Bona’s all-AI “Sanxingdui” wins release approval, becoming China’s first AI-made theatrical feature

First approved AI featureBona Film Group announced that its fully AI-produced feature “Sanxingdui: Weilai Wangshi” (working English title “Sanxingdui: Future Past”; no official English title has been announced) will open nationwide in China on October 23, running 100 minutes. According to Sina, it is the first AI-made film in China to receive a public screening license from the National Film Administration. All characters are original digital creations, with no digital copies of real actors.

AI generates, humans decideThe film was generated on Bona’s “Boka” cloud studio. AI handled image generation and execution, while creative decisions were made by Bona’s AIGMS team following standard film-industry workflows. The story imagines binary code hidden in inscriptions on Sanxingdui bronzes; three thousand years later, a superintelligent AI throws the world into crisis, and an archaeologist finds the key in seven inscriptions. An international concept trailer was shown during the Cannes Film Festival. According to Jiemian, citing annual-report figures, Bona has lost money four years in a row; in 2025 revenue fell 14% to RMB 1.253 billion and the net loss widened to RMB 1.464 billion from RMB 867 million.

The box office decidesChina’s short-drama boom has shown AI can make content cheaper and in greater volume, but not whether audiences will pay to sit through a 100-minute AI-made story in a cinema. This film is the first theatrical test of that, and for a studio four years into losses, far more than one film’s box office rides on it.

▪ SIGNALAI can make a film cheaper, but it cannot buy the tickets.