The Game of Thrones finale might’ve gone down like a sack of spuds, but that hasn’t deterred Netflix from teaming with the duo who led the fantasy series from inception to completion. 3 Body Problem will be adapted from what David Benioff and D.B. Weiss call “the most ambition science-fiction series we’ve read”, written by Chinese author Liu Cixin, and centring on humanity’s first contact with a distant alien race.
Unfortunately, it seems the E.T.’s aren’t coming in peace: the three books in The Three-Body Problem trilogy eventually come to tell the story of an inter-species conflict between humankind and the aliens, spanning from the Chinese cultural revolution in the ‘60s through to the “end of time”, per Benioff and Weiss.
But Netflix, Benioff, Weiss, and Cixin aren’t the only big hitters attached to the project behind the scenes. No, no: Brad Pitt (through his production company, Plan B) Rosamund Pike, and Glass Onion director Rian Johnson are all executive producers on the show, the latter clearly familiar to the genre after his time in the Star Wars trenches.
Netflix’s Tudum blog describes the show as a “sweeping story of Earth’s past, present, and future”, with series co-star Liam Cunningham – who played Ser Davos Seaworth in Thrones – emphasising just how book-accurate the series will be. “The people involved in making this will treat these books with the largest amount of respect that they can possibly give,” he said at Netflix’s annual Tudum event in September last year.
At this year’s event, which took place in Brazil over the weekend, the cast announced the show’s premiere date, and we finally got a glimpse at what to expect.
Here’s everything else you need to know about 3 Body Problem.
Is there a trailer for 3 Body Problem?
The full trailer is yet to drop, but there’s a teaser to whet your appetite, complete with cryptic clues of the conflict to come. “As children, we fear the dark,” it narrates. “Anything might be out there. The unknown troubles us… But we continue to search. Life looks for life.” You can watch the teaser below.
When will 3 Body Problem come out?
As announced at Tudum over the weekend, isn’t that long to wait, with the eight-episode drama series set to premiere in January 2024.
What is The Three-Body Problem about?
The Three-Body Problem, or, as it’ll be called on Netflix, 3 Body Problem, is a Chinese sci-fi book trilogy following humankind’s first contact with aliens in the ‘60s, during the Cultural Revolution. The series lead, astrophysicist Ye Wenjie, becomes disillusioned with humanity amid the turmoil of the era and, when a message comes through from an alien pacifist of the planet Trisolaris warning humankind not to make contact. Ye invites them anyway. Gulp.
Fortunately, it’ll take the civilisation 450 years to reach and ultimately threaten Earth. As the series goes on, the conflict comes ever closer, with a shadowy group of pro-Trisolarian humans influencing events at home – softening up the planet for an invasion force.
Alexander Woo, another executive producer on the series, described it as a “privilege to be adapting one of the great masterpieces of Chinese science-fiction”, continuing that “The Three-Body Problem trilogy combines so many things I love: rich, multi-layered characters and true existential stakes – all told as an elegant and deeply human allegory.”
Cixin, for his part, describes the show as his attempt to “tell a story that transcends time and the confines of nations, cultures, and races; one that compels us to consider the fate of humankind as a whole”.
Is this the first time The Three-Body Problem has been adapted?
This definitely won’t be the first time The Three-Body Problem has been adapted. In fact, it won’t even be the first adaptation this year. The series has already been reworked four times in China, once to critical condemnation in 2009, again in 2018, and then in quick succession this past year, with an animated version dropping at the end of 2022 and a live-action series in January.
While Netflix’s version of The Three-Body Problem will, for most global audiences at least, probably end up being the definitive version of the story, it’s a funny turn of events to have two adaptations of the same story dropping in the same year (the three versions of Pinocchio from 2022 notwithstanding).
Who stars in 3 Body Problem?
You’ll recognise Liam Cunningham (Ser Davos Seaworth) and John Bradley (Sam Tarley) as the major holdovers from Game of Thrones, Benioff and Weiss’ last major literary adaptation. The Hollywood Reporter later reported that Jonathan Pryce would be the next Thrones alum to join the show.
Benedict Wong (Wong in the MCU) and Tsai Chin (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) are the recognisable faces from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Also dotted amongst the pretty robust cast (there’s a lot of ground to cover here) are Eiza González, Saamer Usmani, Sea Shimooka, Zine Tseng, Jess Hong and Jovan Adepo.
At Netflix’s global Tudum showcase in 2022, fans were given a fleeting look at some first-look shots of the series showing Adepo, Tseng, and Shimooka in their still-unknown roles.
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