AI-generated short dramas squeeze Hengdian's live-action actors
The number of productions shooting at Hengdian World Studios has fallen sharply — the site said in August 2025 that it hosted more than 150 short-drama crews a day, while in May 2026 it reported only 59 crews in one week — and several short-drama actors say they can no longer find work, with some leads paid as little as 150 yuan a day. A DataEye report puts China's AI-generated short-drama (manju) market at 16.8 billion yuan in 2025, 22 billion yuan in January–May 2026 and a projected 40 billion yuan for the full year, with AI-realistic human-style shows accounting for 70% of the category in Q2 2026. A Zhongtai Securities note says AI short-drama costs fell another 80–90% in the first half of 2026 versus 2025, at 200–300 yuan per minute for 2D/3D and 800–1,000 yuan for photorealistic AI, versus 8,000–12,000 yuan for live-action.
AI-generated episodes undercut live-action costs so severely that Hengdian, a bellwether for China's film industry, is already shifting toward tourist experiences — a sign of how generative video is reshaping production economics and labor.