Netflix adaptation of Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem faces scepticism from China’s sci-fi fans
- Netflix is turning the Hugo Award-winning The Three-Body Problem into an English-language show for the US streaming platform
- Separate film and anime adaptations of the sci-fi trilogy are also in the works in China
China’s most famous science fiction novel has been praised by the likes of former US President Barack Obama and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. But Chinese readers are still worried that a new adaptation announced by Netflix could be modified to better fit Western tastes.
Netflix said on Tuesday that it’s bringing an English-language adaptation of The Three-Body Problem to its streaming platform. The production team includes David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the co-creators of HBO’s widely popular Game of Thrones adaptation. Alexander Woo, best known for writing part of the HBO horror series True Blood, will also participate.
Liu Cixin, author of the original books and The Wandering Earth , will serve as a consulting producer along with Ken Liu, the English translator of the first and third books of the trilogy.
The announcement comes 12 years after the The Three-Body Problem was first published in China, kicking off the Remembrance of Earth‘s Past series. The novel portrays an impending invasion of Earth by an alien civilisation that has captured a signal sent by the Chinese military. It garnered global recognition when it was published in English in 2014 and went on to win the prestigious Hugo Award the next year.
News of various adaptations has surfaced repeatedly over the years, but no film or drama series has yet to materialise. Netflix said it obtained the rights for its adaptation from Yoozoo, the Shanghai-based game studio that’s had the dramatisation rights for years.
