Thunderbird Films will bring 《Promote Weaving》 to the big screen for testing

An AI movie originally produced for streaming media - Promoting Weaving - recently underwent a big screen viewing test.On October 20, the producer Thunderbird Films organized a private offline viewing group and invited media personnel and audiences to watch the film in the theater.According to a report from Time.com on October 22, the film received positive feedback from participants after the screening.The nature of this event is an offline evaluation, and the film has not been transferred to a theatrical release.

《Promoting Weaving》will be broadcast exclusively on Tencent Video on October 15th.According to reports, on the first day of its launch, among the movies being broadcast on Tencent at the time, its revenue was second only to "Kung Fu Girls" and "Love Letter to Grandma", two theatrically transferred works; its revenue in the first three days was described as “, comparable to the top theatrically transferred works. The report did not disclose the specific amount.

This review took place on the eve of another AI cinema release.Sanxingdui: Future Past, produced by Bona Pictures, is scheduled to hit theaters across the country on October 23. Reports call it the first AI hyper-realistic theater movie in China to obtain a public release license.The distribution paths of the two works are different: - Sanxingdui: Past Events - enters theater ticket sales and distribution, - Promote Weaving - is still based on online exclusive broadcast, using offline activities to test the effect of large-screen presentation.

《Promoting Weaving》Based on 《Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio》.In the original work, fame is caused by a cricket, and the fate of the little man is controlled by power.The movie moves this dilemma into a sci-fi mecha story: an operation and maintenance worker becomes famous and has a tense relationship with his son Cheng Hoshino under the pressure of life, but Hoshino shows talent in the neuro-animal competition.The father and son took a ridiculed ”organ“ into the underground arena and gradually became a dark horse.Seeing that their fortunes had turned around, technology businessmen offered them the temptation of ”enhancement%.

Time.com summarized the film's narrative focus as the father's midlife crisis, the dignity of ordinary people under systemic pressure, and the final reconciliation between father and son.Thunderbird Films’ explanation for this creative route is that AI can lower the production threshold, but content standards cannot be lowered accordingly.The company did not prioritize AI capabilities in mass short plays, but instead invested resources in screenwriters, directors and long narrative production processes.In his view, short dramas can verify production capacity and recover costs quickly, while long narratives can still play a role in precipitating characters, emotions and values.

Thunderbird's attempt this year began with an experimental short film - The Paper Wife of Folklore Weird Tales.This short film was launched with Seedance 2.0. The team used the new tools to complete a process practice from production to final film, and then entered commercial film distribution.

Biomonster, released in June, is its first commercial AI movie.According to the data listed in the report, the peak popularity of the film exceeded 15,000, and it entered the TOP2 of Tencent's AI movie annual accounts. It won the first place in the Maoyan online movie daily list and weekly list, and the membership income of Tencent's website exceeded 1 million yuan.

In September, Substitute took another distribution route and was launched simultaneously on iQiyi, Youku, and Tencent Video.This is a realistic suspense work that focuses on narrative and character performance. It has also topped the Maoyan daily online movie list.By October, 《Jiu Zhi 》 chose to broadcast exclusively on Tencent, and the theme shifted to science fiction action.The three commercial works cover different schedules and have different distribution strategies.The report also stated that the popularity of Thunderbird’s works on Tencent has exceeded 14,000.

In the final selection of the 2026 Busan International Art Festival International Competition, 《Stand-in》won the Gold Award,《Biochemical Monster》won the Silver Award, and《Promoting Weaving》won the Excellence Award.Mtime.com believes that awards reflect the investment in the narrative of these works; to measure content labels, one should also look at whether multiple works can be produced and distributed continuously and stably.

Supporting these projects is a team of 100 people, including domestic screenwriting teams, Hong Kong directors and production teams, and post-production is participated by Hollywood post-production teams.Thunderbird has a monthly production capacity of 10 movies, and there will be a reserve of about a hundred AI movies to be launched in 2027.

Stable quality, controllable costs and continuous supply are the requirements for the industrialization of AI movies proposed by Mtime.com.Thunderbird’s arrangement is to retain professional links such as screenwriting, directing and post-production, and use a repeatable production process to support multiple projects.The company hopes to maintain the story and emotional expression of long videos and position itself as a supplier and standard setter of AI movies.

The content layout is also connected to its hardware business.Thunderbird Technology, incubated by TCL Industrial, has businesses involving scene Internet and AI × IoT. It provides large-screen software, membership, applications and content services to more than 100 million households in China and overseas. It also expands services such as streaming media advertising, short dramas and AI large models.As an OTT manufacturer under TCL Group, Thunderbird hopes to consider movie development and use scenarios of large TV screens and AR glasses in the same process.

Reports claim that Thunderbird AR viewing glasses rank first in global shipments.The specific approach to this part of the layout is to consider the viewing adaptation of TVs and glasses during the content development stage, so as to connect film production and terminal presentation, and establish a closed business loop from content production to hardware viewing.