Robert Hamer
Womp womp. Looks like Chinese moviegoers are just as disinterested in watching a full-length movie from an expensive, environmentally ruinous plagiarism machine as Americans. Sanxingdui: Future Past was heralded by its production company Bona Film Group as the People’s Republic’s first theatrically-released feature-length film made entirely by AI video generation software. This pioneer in defiling the very purpose of art itself took in just ¥1.21 million, or about $181,000, at the Chinese box office against a ¥10 million (or $1.5 million) production budget and despite opening in over 10,000 movie theaters last weekend. The animation entertainment news site Cartoon Brew points out a particularly humorous, and telling, irony of its failure:
Notably, the dismal launch comes two months after Chinese audiences embraced a very different animation curiosity in Niu Lai, a shoestring feature made by director Xin Yumeng and his mother, screenwriter Sun Lifang.
That film barely made a peep when it first hit theaters, earning roughly RMB7,700 ($1,150) during its first ten days after opening on August 5. But then clips of its crude modeling, stiff animation, and bizarre performances spread online. Its shortcomings became its charm, transforming an obscure production into a communal moviegoing experience with an oddly endearing pair of filmmakers behind it.
In other words, Chinese audiences were far more willing to pay money to see a charmingly ramshackle animated production from some dude and his mom on a shoestring budget than slick algorithmically-generated slop a bunch of computers spat out. Something, perhaps, to keep in mind if you’re a film distributor going into a pitch meeting to acquire Merry the Christmas Witch…
Source: Cartoon Brew
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