When it comes to aliens from other galaxies invading Earth, usually they just show up unannounced and uninvited. In 3 Body Problem – the next big thing for Game of Thrones makers David Benioff and DB Weiss – it’s the announcement, the invitation and the anticipation that drives the story. So do astrophysics, virtual reality, quantum entanglement, string theory, Chinese history and other rather big ideas.
Well they do in Liu Cixin’s source novel The Three-Body Problem, the first in the Chinese writer’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past epic sci-fi trilogy, which, after an English version was published in 2014, won critical acclaim and awards.
When Benioff and Weiss signed a US$200 million (NZ$329m) deal with Netflix not long after the critically rocky ending of HBO’s Game of Thrones, the streamer suggested the books. “It was the first thing we’d come across since Thrones where we were actually scared. We knew this is going to be hard,” Benioff told The Hollywood Reporter.
Hard also means expensive. While GoT eventually had price tags of US$15m per episode, the Wall Street Journal estimates each of the eight instalments in 3 Body Problem’s first series will cost US$20m – and that’s without any dragons. The trailers suggest much of it has gone into creating a globetrotting espionage and murder saga crossed with a virtual-reality parallel universe. The show has some familiar faces from Thrones – Liam Cunningham, Jonathan Pryce and John Bradley all feature, as does Benedict Wong (Doctor Strange).
The newer faces among the leads include Palmerston North’s Jess Hong, whose screen career so far has been bit parts in NZ productions and short films, as well as theatrical work. She plays Jin Cheng, a Chinese-Kiwi member of “the Oxford Five”, a group of bright young physicists and Oxford grads on whom Weiss and Benioff centre their reworking.
The five have all been students of Dr Ye Wenjie (Rosalind Chao). In the book, the younger Ye witnessed the death of her father during China’s Cultural Revolution. As a young astrophysicist in China, her work with interstellar radio transmissions – and her despair at the state of the world – has told a dying civilisation in a distant galaxy to take over from humanity. They take up the invitation but it’s going to take many years for the invasion to arrive. So begins a story of an existential crisis for Earth, which could make the show feel like an allegory for real-world threats, as well as a story about what happens when our belief in science and scientists comes under threat.
“It’s much less about fighting tentacle monsters and much more about how does humanity respond to this great existential threat?” Benioff told THR. “And, sadly for us, in the past few years we’ve seen that mankind doesn’t respond particularly well to existential threats.”
It’s likely the producers’ changes to Liu’s book – including giving it a global setting rather than a China-centric one, bringing elements from further in the trilogy, and possibly compressing its timeline – is likely to earn them some opprobrium from loyal readers.
But, of course, after the reactions they got when they departed from George RR Martin’s GoT blueprint, they’re used to that. Besides, they and co-creator Alexander Woo (True Blood) are hoping that 3 Body Problem will play out over four seasons – assuming they get the viewing numbers on the first series.
“The second book is far better than the first, and the third book just completely blew my mind, “says Benioff. “So, I feel if we survive to the second season, we’re going to be in a good place.”
3 Body Problem Netflix, full season, 8pm, Thursday, March 21.
