Overview
- The film, which opened on Friday, October 23, has grossed about 1.21 million yuan (≈$180,000) against a reported budget near 10 million yuan (≈$1.5 million).
- Bona scheduled more than 10,000 screenings but many shows averaged roughly two viewers and reported occupancy fell to about 0.1%, leaving per-screen returns near ¥20 on opening day.
- Bona says nearly 100 people worked on the two-year project and that the production used over 1.2 million AI-generated images, and regulators classified the movie as animation and issued the first public screening permit for a fully AI-generated feature.
- Audiences who attended cited low perceived visual and narrative quality and ticket prices as reasons for not buying tickets, a rejection that stands in sharp contrast with the viral success of the $200 human-made animated film Niu Lai, which has earned about $10 million.
- The flop has already pressured Bona’s stock and industry analysts say the result could push studios to favor shorter AI content, shift AI-heavy projects to streaming, or demand higher-quality, slower development for theatrical AI films.