‘The 3 Body Problem’ series showing on Netflix is based on the bestselling science fiction series ‘Remembrance of Earth’s Past’ by Liu Cixin.
The series comes from the creators of ‘Game of Thrones’, David Benioff and D B Weiss, and apparently is the most expensive series produced yet by Netflix. The estimated costs are reported to be around a staggering US$20 million per episode.
The book series was initially published in Chinese in 2008. The first book in the series is The Three-Body Problem with the second book being The Dark Forest, and the third, Death’s End.
Although the Chinese video company, Tencent, previously obtained the rights to the novels in 2008 it wasn’t until 2015 that work began in partnership with YooZoo Film.
Although they filmed for five months it was never released.
In 2020 YooZoo Film made a deal to produce their own adaptation for Netflix. Even though work was already done on the script for a Chinese adaptation at Tencent it still took four years to complete. Shooting began in July 2020 and lasted 126 days. The Beijing Electron–Positron Collider II doubled for the particle accelerator in the series.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Liu Cixin is a Chinese computer engineer and science fiction writer. He is a nine-time winner of China’s Galaxy Award and has also received the 2015 Hugo Award for his novel The Three-Body Problem as well as the 2017 Locus Award for Death’s End. He is also a winner of the Chinese Nebula Award.
In English translations of his works, his name is given as Cixin Liu. He is a member of China Science Writers Association and the vice president of Shanxi Writers Association. He is sometimes called “Da Liu” (“Big Liu”) by his fellow science fiction writers in China.
