China’s Stars Jobless in Droves, Actresses Cry! 700 Cinemas Earn $0, Leads Get $15/Day, Deliver Food

By day, I play a dashing prince. At night, I deliver takeout. I got some good news today. I landed a leading role, but the pay is 300 yuan for two days. I feel like I can make 300 delivering food. Well, if there's acting work, I'll take it. Last year, I didn't even want bit parts that paid a few hundred yuan for a single line. This year, I can't even land jobs that pay 200 or 300 yuan for more than 20 hours of work. I believe it's a job. I know some people. Once filming wraps, you're unemployed. I know some young actors who graduated around 2020. The industry was already starting to slump when they left school. Every year, they hope things will pick up a little. I asked a few of them. And they basically make just over 10,000 yuan a year. I told them I couldn't see how they could live in Beijing on that, that they should consider changing careers. These are all graduates of top schools. Shizai shimeixiang. I never expected to be threatened for asking for the 1,600 yuan I was owed for acting. They told me that if I dared demand my pay publicly again, they'd get major directors together to blacklist me. I was so angry I had to laugh. You've held up that 1,600 yuan for five months. I've asked repeatedly and now you're trying to scare me. Besides, with the industry the way it is, there's hardly any work for you to take away. So I'm exposing this now. You talk about getting major directors together as if you can order them around. Good directors won't listen to you. Directors who only do what you say probably aren't very good anyways. So I'm not worried. I just want whoever is in charge of this production to pay my 1,600 yuan right away. Otherwise, people online might think you owe me 60 million yuan. The amount I'm asking for is so small, it's embarrassing. For actors in the middle and lower ranks, the job provides neither a fixed monthly salary nor China's standard package of five social insurance programs and a housing provident fund. Their income depends entirely on whether productions have worked for them. When they have a role, they may work through. Through the night, once the offers stop, they are effectively unemployed, making matters worse. Even after finally landing a short drama project, this actor encountered a producer who failed to pay. After the contract was signed, it was taken away to be stamped and was not returned for a long time. The deposit was paid, but the remaining payment kept being delayed. When the actor demanded the money, the other party threatened to withhold every penny if the demands continued. Several people on the production, including lighting technicians and camera operators, were owed wages. Getting paid proved extremely difficult. On screen, they portrayed the dramatic ups and downs of other people's lives. Off screen, they struggled to cover their own everyday expenses. Actors are ordinary people who need to eat, repay loans, and support their families. Now, AI is threatening those livelihoods. This anxiety is something all workers, beyond actors alone, need to understand. What people call the film and television industry's winter has become an ice age. Spring isn't coming. Many people see this industry through rose-colored glasses. They think it's glamorous with big paychecks under the spotlight. I've been acting for more than 10 years and right now I really have no work. It's not that I don't want to act or that I can't act well. There are just painfully few productions starting up. I send in my information, auditions, and wait. Again and again, nothing comes back. A couple of years ago, I thought the downturn might be temporary, that things would improve if I could just hold on. Now I'm gradually facing reality. This may be more than a slow season. The whole industry may have changed. AI short dramas are squeezing us out, and projects are scarce. Between jobs, I feel anxious and lost. Every day, I struggle with self-doubt. I honestly want to tell young people who dream of acting That only a lucky few get the glamour they see on screen. For most actors, it's failed auditions, stretches without income, and long, exhausting waits. Human performers are now fighting on every front just to hold on to a 5,000 yuan paycheck. Yes, things really are hard for everyone now. This is a very realistic question. This is a very real problem. A lot of actors have already gone home. Some have taken regular jobs and others have started small businesses. When I asked around, the answer is always that they've already left Hengdian. I I came to Beijing alone in 2009, pulling a suitcase. Just like that, 17 years have passed. I came here to become an actor, but now I haven't had acting work for several years. I'm wondering whether I should stay in Beijing. With AI arriving, many people in film and television can't find productions to work on. Many actors around me who moved here to pursue their dreams have left. Returning home or choosing cities where living costs are lower. Honestly, Beijing is expensive. The money I earned during my acting years barely covered living expenses. After rent and everyday costs, there wasn't much left. Most industries were affected during the pandemic. I thought film and television would get back on track once it ended. I never imagined this. I really didn't. With the arrival of AI over the past few years, 99% of actors have lost their jobs. I kept refusing to accept that reality, still holding on to the dream that I might keep acting. Recently, I've finally given up on that hope. I've even started thinking about leaving Beijing. I just feel that if I'm an actor with no acting work, there's no reason to stay here. The film industry's winter arrived along with the actual winter. I can't keep my little stall going. People tell me to hang on a little longer. The film industry tells me the same thing. But I've realized this is about the overall state of film and television. There simply aren't production to work on. No matter how long I hold on, there still won't be acting work. When I moved into this apartment building last year, it was almost impossible to find an available unit. Now I see rental ads everywhere downstairs. Directors, executives, directors, makeup artists, on-set makeup artists, casting assistants, performance assistants, lighting crews, and camera crews working on live action dramas are all affected. When actors lose their jobs, those people lose theirs too. Hello, everyone. I'm Tang Yuan, an actor. Hello, I'm actor Tang Yuan. My wife and I both graduated from the Beijing Film Academy. We were full of dreams about acting and thought this was the career we'd pursue for the rest of our lives. But life is unpredictable. After AI arrived, the film and television industry went into a slump. Opportunities to act gradually disappeared until we both became unemployed. This year, we married simple. We don't have a comfortable life. We have nothing. We just hope to support each other and keep our little family together. When we felt most lost and helpless, my mother-in-law and other relatives came to Beijing to see us. It hurt. We didn't want our family to see us at our lowest. But you can't hide the truth of your life. When my mother-in-law quietly transferred money to my wife and told us to make sure we ate well, the last of my emotional defense broke down. Our industry has fallen apart too. Now we've decided to find the courage to try something different and open our own small fruit tea shop. The road ahead is uncertain. We don't know if we can make it work. Extras are being replaced by AI and I've lost my job five times in one year. So I went for an interview for a housekeeping job doing cleaning. I'm hoping to find work that won't mean moving again with my four cats. I've lost my job a couple of days ago because of construction at the tourist attraction where I worked. I heard cleaning pays pretty well so I arranged an interview today. Lunar New Year is coming soon and demand for cleaning should be high. I plan to go see what the job is like. If it works out, I'll do it until the holiday and then decide what comes next. I took the subway from Hengdian to Yiwu, which took more than an hour. It's cold, cold, cold. Yiwu is much colder than Hengdian. If I weren't trying to survive, I'd really rather wait until the holiday to look for work. After going around in circles, I finally reached the floor where the interviews were being held. Today, I learned how they assign jobs, what the work involves, and how the pay works. Tomorrow is practical training, and I also need a health certificate. I already have one, so I can head straight home. The round trip took more than two hours, and the subway fare was 18 yuan. That made this a pretty expensive interview. One thing I think makes this job more accommodating is that I can choose one or two days off a week. If I want to earn more, I can work more days and take more jobs. If I want more rest, I can choose two days off. I hope this job lasts a little longer. In recent years, short-run production companies have increasingly used artificial intelligence, replacing actors and screenwriters with algorithms to sharply reduce production costs. China Central Television, or CCTV, reported in June that 95% of the 128,000 microdramas released nationwide is the first quarter of 2026 contained AI-generated material. After the rules drew attention, industry bloggers and Chinese officials said the 95% target referred to their share of industry operations supported by AI tools, including script development assistance, storyboarding, editing, content review, and regulatory oversight. They said it did not mean that finished productions would be AI generated. People online responded, human actors are going to lose their jobs. Put simply, nobody has any money left. Let's all go under together. And Hengdian could be finished. According to CCTV, people working in Hengdian have also had significantly fewer opportunities to perform this year. Some extras used to earn as much as 600 yuan a day this year, their daily earnings have fallen to roughly half that amount. Acting student Gao Xiaifei said AI can produce larger, more spectacular scenes at a lower cost. But for people studying acting, it is also a double-edged sword. Gao Xiaifei said those of us studying acting may find ourselves unemployed in the future. Hengdian has long been a production hub for China's historical films and television dramas, as well as barometer of the industry's health. In past summers, productions held bustling opening ceremonies, but amid the impact of AI, funding shortages, and other pressures, only two long-form historical dramas began filming there this summer. This is probably the worst year the film and television industry has ever seen. It feels like the whole industry has lost its foundation. Actors who once earned 10 million yuan About 1.4 million US dollars or even tens of millions for a single production are now pleading for work all over social media. Half the directors, screenwriters and production companies have stopped working and are waiting for jobs. Some call it an industry downturn, but I think this is the inevitable result of investors destroying their own business. The industry-wide slump is the investment bubble bursting. Money can generate buzz. Bring in stars and fund publicity campaigns, but it can't force audiences to pay. Now, 700 movie theaters in China have no ticket sales. Audiences are voting by staying away, exposing a business model built on formulas designed to squeeze money out of them. A video posted online on November 4th described just how quiet China's movie theaters have become. The person said nearly 700 theaters nationwide had gone an entire day without selling a single ticket. That leaves those theatres screening movies to empty auditoriums. Theatre owners cannot simply wait for their businesses to close. Some have started serving hot pot inside auditoriums. Others have turned them into rooms for midday naps or studying. Still, others sell lottery tickets or host murder mystery role-playing games. These changes raise questions about whether China's theatres are collectively moving into other businesses, whether people can no longer afford movies, Or whether Chinese films have become so unappealing that audiences refuse to pay to watch them. Prominent Chinese actor Zhang Yimou recently spoke about AI. He said it has placed unprecedented pressure on the entire film industry and he worries it could eventually replace filmmakers. At a forum for the 39th China Golden Rooster Awards in Xiamen on November 7th, Zhang Yimou publicly shared his views for the first time on AI's impact on the film industry. Zhang said he often sees most people at airports, train stations, and high-speed rail stations looking down at their phones, watching short videos and short dramas. He believes AI has a limited impact on live performances such as plays, operas, dance productions, and concerts, and may struggle to threaten them, but its impact on film is enormous. He said phones are flooded with low-cost AI short videos and dramas that are free to watch. Platforms even offer cash rewards to attract views. They don't charge viewers, they actually pay them. He said questioning whether large numbers of people could still be willing to buy movie tickets in the future. He called it a major challenge. He worries that although AI cannot yet replace the subtlety of human acting, its rapid development may eventually make its performances indistinguishable from real ones. He acknowledged the unprecedented pressure already facing the film industry and questioned what filmmakers should do in five or 10 years when AI-generated work surpasses their across the board. He also questioned whether film festivals and theater chains could accept AI-generated feature films seeking festival entry or theatrical release in the future. An industry insider said in a video. The short drama platform grows, the poor ordinary people become. Here's a counterintuitive fact about it. Before AI, almost everyone in short dramas could make money, whether they were investors, producers, or actors. Since AI arrived, there are more dramas, production is faster, and costs are lower, yet nobody seems to be making money. Recently, a drama called 800 Episodes of Battle Royale became hugely popular. I watched it every day for more than 10 days, all 1,000 episodes. At first, I was a little embarrassed to admit I was following a short drama until recent reports revealed how popular it had become. Part of its appeal was that the creators weren't professional screenwriters, a major company, or even a professional team. They were mothers and ride-hailing drivers from smaller Chinese cities. People said AI short dramas were wonderful. Investors could finally no longer stand in the way of talented people, and ordinary people People could use AI to realize their dreams and make money. But consider how much a viral AI drama actually earned. Publicly available figures show 600 million views. The production team's share was just 300,000 yuan. If AI dramas were so profitable, eager investors would surely have moved in. Yet the people behind these viral dramas are ordinary people, often at the bottom of the economic ladder. Perhaps there really isn't much money in it. Only ordinary people are willing to stay up making this stuff, after driving for more than 10 hours or putting the children to bed. All for amounts too small to interest major investors. AI has given ordinary people new production tools, but it hasn't changed the position when it comes to deciding how the money is divided. Everyone is simply using more advanced tools to crowd into the same market and compete harder against one another. AI has allowed everyone making short dramas to produce faster and spend less while earning even less. This is happening beyond short dramas. The broader Chinese internet economy reflects the same pattern on a larger scale. The downturn in China's movie market may be deeper than it appears. The figures show the scale of the decline. China's box office totaled just 29.6 billion yuan in the first three quarters of this year, down nearly 30% from a year earlier. Movie attendance fell by more than 200 million over the same period. In October, nationwide box office revenue was only 2 billion yuan, a 12-year low. That was roughly three quarters below the 8.3 billion yuan recorded in October 2019. With no one watching, theatres cannot keep running the air conditioning day after day for empty seats. Beyond AI threatening actors' jobs, China's film industry faces another more fundamental problem. It is not producing enough good movies that audiences want to pay to see. Scripts are formulaic. Subjects repeat and stars with large online following appears one after another. The CCP's strict film censorship adds another obstacle. Before telling a story, creators must first consider whether it will pass review. By the time it clears every stage, the story may have been revised so heavily that little remains worth telling. Audiences paying several dozens yuan for a ticket expects more than a session of ideological instruction. The weakness in China's movie market is also tied to the economic downturn. Job losses, pay cuts, and everyday expenses have left many families watching every penny. Spending more than 100 yuan on a trip to the movies is hard to justify, especially when so many videos are available free on their phones. But the industry cannot put all the blame on audiences having less money. As movies become less original, they give viewers fewer reasons to pay. From empty theatres to actors without work and from unsold tickets to auditoriums serving hot pot to the downturn is affecting the entire film and television production chain. The industry may struggle to weather this slump. It remains unclear how many theatres and workers will survive until business finally recovers.