The encyclopedia · Product & Design · Product decision · 2024
Bona's AI-de-aged Jackie Chan epic cost ¥350M and grossed ¥80M
Legend sold a deepfaked 27-year-old Jackie Chan as its hook; audiences rejected the AI face, and the ¥350M film grossed ¥79.9M — a loss of over ¥300M.
Bona Film Group · 2024-07-10
What happened
Legend (传说), Bona Film Group's sequel to the 2005 Jackie Chan adventure hit The Myth, was built around a technical first: Bona called it the first theatrical film 'starring a digital human,' using deepfake technology to put a 27-year-old Chan on screen for long stretches. Directed by Stanley Tong, shot on grassland locations with 6,000 horses, it cost a reported ¥350–360M and opened July 10, 2024.
The hook became the liability. Audiences said the AI face looked stiff and uncanny — in one grief scene the young face appeared to smile — and word of mouth collapsed within days. Opening day brought ¥6M. The film finished its domestic run at ¥79.9M, which Sina Entertainment said made it the biggest box-office loss of 2024 in China: an estimated hole of more than ¥300M for the producers.
For Bona it was the second of three consecutive loss-making years. The company's 2024 annual report described Legend as a pioneering fusion of film and tourism, without disclosing what the experiment cost.
Why it happened
- The film was sold on a technical gimmick — a de-aged star — that audiences found uncanny rather than novel; the effect was the marketing, and the marketing backfired.
- A sequel nineteen years after the original leaned on nostalgia for The Myth but gave returning viewers no story reason to come back — only a face.
- At ¥350M the film needed roughly ¥1B at the Chinese box office to break even, a result no Jackie Chan film has come near in years; the budget ignored the star's fading draw.
The lesson
Technology is not a hook. A de-aged face sold as the main attraction read as uncanny, not wondrous — the film needed ¥1B to break even and earned ¥80M.
Sources
- 传说票房失利，成龙再现AI技术败笔，亏损或超3亿（成本3.5亿、首日600万）— 搜狐
- 成龙新片《传说》票房惨败：累计票房7,990万，预计出品方亏损超3亿，2024年票房亏损榜首 — 新浪娱乐
- 博纳影业 2024 年年度报告（主投《传说》：全球首部"数字人"主演院线电影，Deepfake 还原 27 岁成龙）— 巨潮资讯
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