Sanxingdui: Future Past sets October 23 China release date

Bona Film Group announced on Sunday, September 27, 2026, that its AI-produced feature Sanxingdui: Future Past will open in cinemas across China on October 23, 2026. According to TechNode, which cited a post on Bona's WeChat channel, the 100-minute science-fiction feature has already secured a public-screening licence from China's National Film Administration.

Bona's AIGMS division, the studio's dedicated unit for AI-generated movies and series, used AI throughout production, including image generation and visual effects, while a team of more than 100 people kept creative direction, narrative choices and final artistic decisions in human hands, per TechNode. The production drew on more than 1.2 million source images and went through over 100 full-film iterations across roughly two years, running on an "Infinite Canvas" system built by Boka Film Cloud that combined scripts, storyboards, characters, sets and lighting inside one working environment. Bona says the film uses no digital replica of a real actor, an approach the studio says also avoids the image-rights questions tied to a real performer's likeness.

The story mixes the Sanxingdui civilization, the more than 3,000-year-old archaeological site in Sichuan province known for its bronze masks and bronze sacred trees, with a science-fiction plot about a future in which humanity hands its decisions to a "super AI," triggering a systemic crisis. Yicai Global reports the plot turns on symbols carved into Sanxingdui bronzeware that could not have originated 3,000 years ago, discovered by an archaeologist searching for a way out of the crisis.

Bona calls the film "China's first hyper-realistic AI-produced theatrical film," a claim reported by both TechNode and Longbridge, which also confirms the October 23 date and the screening licence. What is new in this announcement is the date and the scale of nationwide theatrical distribution, not the licence itself. Reuters, via Kyodo News, reported in late September that the National Film Administration had already granted a screening licence to the project, then described as a 90-minute film under the working title "Sanxingdui: Future Memories," calling it the first AI feature from a major Chinese studio to clear theatrical approval. The runtime and title have since settled at 100 minutes and Sanxingdui: Future Past under Bona's own announcement.

Whether a nationwide AI-produced feature can draw a theatrical audience, rather than the short-form AI drama that already fills Chinese streaming apps, will not be known until the film actually opens.

Sanxingdui: Future Past opens in cinemas across China on October 23, 2026; no international release has been announced.