Box office is always unpredictable. A low-budget movie with no star cast may go rogue at the box office, while a big-budget film with huge stars on board might sink. History has shown both.
The same happened with a new Chinese movie titled Sanxingdui: Future Past. Made on a reported budget of over ¥10 million ($1.5 million, around Rs. 13 crore), the movie was released in Chinese theatres on October 23, 2026. In six days, it reportedly made just ¥1.21 million ($181K, around Rs. 1.5 crore), which is a poor performance.
The speciality of the movie is that it was made entirely using AI. But the experiment by director Yue Ming and production house Bona Film Group seems to have failed at the box office, with the film earning far less than its reported budget.
Meanwhile, another Chinese film titled Niu Lai, which was mocked by audiences, made a solid $9.2 million (around Rs. 80 crore). The film’s fortunes changed when its clips went viral on social media. People started watching it in theatres, and the movie became a box-office sensation.
The performance of these two films shows how unpredictable the box office can be. While the AI-made film struggled to bring audiences to theatres, Niu Lai managed to turn online attention into box-office success. It also raises a question for filmmakers: is new technology enough to bring audiences into theatres, or does the content still matter most?