BEIJING, Oct. 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — iQIYI, China’s leading online entertainment platform, announced that the cumulative revenue-sharing, a model where production partners share earnings with iQIYI based on viewership, box office for its AIGC film series “The Ferry Man” has surpassed RMB 8 million (US$1.2 million) as of September 23, marking a new milestone for the series. This comes as the third instalment, “The Ferry Man: The Dream of the Princess”, debuts on October 1 on iQIYI and iQIYI International.
Produced by iQIYI and GHY Culture & Media, the series’ first two titles, “The Ferry Man: Butterfly Dream” and “The Ferry Man: The Dream of the Celestial Maiden”, were released simultaneously on August 22 on iQIYI and iQIYI International, and quickly gained commercial traction, reflecting growing market confidence in iQIYI’s AI-driven premium content.
Rooted in traditional Chinese culture, “The Ferry Man” is an established IP spanning long-form drama, online films, musicals, and short-form series, blending mythology, folklore, and contemporary themes. The new films use AI production to render classical Chinese philosophical imagery as cinematic worlds.
Redefining Production Efficiency
The success of “The Ferry Man” series demonstrates a robust end-to-end AIGC value chain, one that successfully integrates production efficiency, market validation, and strong financial returns. By incorporating AI into its core workflow, iQIYI has fundamentally optimized the filmmaking process.
According to Zhichao LI, producer of the series, the first two films moved from project initiation to launch in less than four months. “AI significantly improved efficiency during the preparation and production stages,” Li said, noting that the script development and post-production processes remained largely consistent with traditional film and television workflows.
During production, AIGC was used to generate visual assets for concept design, sets, props, and other art elements, which could then be directly turned into video based on the director’s creative requirements. This simplified parts of the traditional production process, including physical shoots and scene transitions, while giving creators greater flexibility. For a key scene in “The Ferry Man: The Dream of the Celestial Maiden”, AI generation also streamlined a process that would traditionally involve months of visual effects and green-screen production, significantly improving production efficiency and making complex scenes more feasible to produce.
Leveraging Digital Assets for Long-Term Value
Unlike traditional productions, “The Ferry Man” series builds lasting digital asset value through AIGC. The three lead actors licensed their likenesses and provided their own voiceovers, with digital character assets, scenes, and props developed as standardized, reusable assets. These assets enable the upcoming third film to maintain visual consistency while significantly reducing production costs, establishing a scalable model for serialized content development.
Market Validation through Data-Driven Models
The commercial performance of “The Ferry Man” series further validates the viability of AIGC content as a financially sustainable production model. Through iQIYI’s revenue-sharing model, the series recovered its full production costs within the first week and surpassed RMB8 million in cumulative box office within the first month, with figures continuing to grow. This rapid market feedback also enables producers to adjust subsequent creative decisions in a timely manner, reducing the time and cost of iteration.
The series also builds on iQIYI’s continued exploration of long-form AIGC filmmaking, following “Mystic Tales – The Spider Lady’s Vendetta” — China’s first AIGC internet feature film released under an Internet Drama and Film Distribution License.
iQIYI Press
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SOURCE iQIYI
