But Friedlander saw an opportunity to entice Netflix’s global audience to watch a sci-fi story that included different genres including drama, fantasy elements, mystery and history.
“There’s an opportunity for this show to be wildly popular, and I think it’s because it’s so bold,” Friedlander says. “It’s so innovative. It’s so entertaining and it’s been written and created to bring people onto the ride.”
The eight-episode series, now streaming on the platform, is part of Netflix’s strategy of betting big on programming that it hopes will resonate with its 260 million global members and prospective subscribers.
3 Body Problem reportedly cost US$20 million an episode to produce, a big number even for a Netflix sci-fi spectacle, and similar to the per-episode cost of HBO Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon.
3 Body Problem piracy in China shows some American shows can still break through
3 Body Problem piracy in China shows some American shows can still break through
Unlike studios such as Walt Disney and Universal Pictures, Netflix does not have a large back catalogue of intellectual property it can rely on to keep churning out familiar hits.
Instead, the streaming giant has invested in original stories like Squid Game and Stranger Things, and gambles on producers who are willing to adapt stories from books and history.
Friedlander mentioned Liu Cixin’s books to Benioff and Weiss in 2019. The duo devoured the trilogy on the flight back from a Game of Thrones event in Japan and realised this was their next project.
It had the scale they were interested in, but was also different enough from Game of Thrones, with its complex scientific concepts.
This is a story of how humanity as a species confronts an existential threat … the cast should look like humanity as a whole
“As Thrones was coming to a close, David and I knew that we weren’t dead yet,” Weiss says. “Thirteen years in high fantasy was fantastic, but 13 years of mud and horses and armour, and more horses stomping through the mud and trying to make sure they didn’t stomp on you – like, we’ve had enough of almost getting stomped on by horses.
“So we wanted to do something different, science fiction, something we both grew up with.”
The show stars actors such as Benedict Wong from Marvel’s Doctor Strange, as well as familiar faces from Game of Thrones including Liam Cunningham, Jonathan Pryce and John Bradley.
“It looks like a very ambitious show,” says Susanne Daniels, former YouTube global head of original content. “Once in a while, all these streamers should swing for the fences and make a little noise to try to stand out as a must-have for the subscribers.”
Other competing streaming services are also spending big on large franchises, even as Wall Street demands financial discipline and increased profits.
Amazon spent more than US$700 million for the first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, including TV rights costs, according to people familiar with the matter who declined to be named.
Whether 3 Body Problem gets a second season depends on whether Netflix viewers tune in. Most reviews have been generally positive.
3 Body Problem: Netflix sci-fi adaptation is the latest event television
3 Body Problem: Netflix sci-fi adaptation is the latest event television
“I’m nervous because for us, I think we gauge success by being able to tell the whole story and that means not having just one season, it means getting to the end,” Benioff says. “I really desperately want a second season.”
Friedlander had been talking up the Remembrance of Earth’s Past books in conversations even before Netflix bought the rights. He called it a “lightning in a bottle moment” where he and “two of the greatest storytellers of all time” responded to Liu’s book. The pair signed an overall deal with Netflix in August 2019.
“Knowing how extraordinary they are at adapting material, I thought, they have to be the best people to do this,” Friedlander says.
He later introduced Benioff and Weiss to Woo, a writer and executive producer on the HBO vampire drama True Blood.
Netflix secured the rights to the English-language adaptation of Liu’s books in 2020. A previous Chinese-language adaptation was produced by Shenzhen-based technology and entertainment company Tencent. But the project attracted unwanted attention because of global politics.
Five US senators in 2020 asked Netflix to reconsider doing business with Liu, who in an interview with the New Yorker magazine, appeared to support the Chinese government’s alleged actions in putting Uygur people in indoctrination camps in Xinjiang. Beijing has repeatedly denied these allegations.
Netflix, which is not available in China, said in a response to the senators that Liu’s comments “are not reflective of the views of Netflix or of the show’s creators, nor are they part of the plot or themes of the show”. The producers say they met with Liu just once, on Zoom.
They really captured the scenery, exactly how the book would describe it. The environment was spot on
Production finished in February 2023. But months later, its showrunners felt something was missing. They wanted to shoot a bar scene in the first episode that they thought was essential for the development of two characters.
Then the writers’ strike happened before they could write it. That was followed by an actors’ strike, forcing more delays. But Netflix was willing to wait.
“It was a little bit of a tricky thing because it’s like we want you to hold the show that you’ve already spent X number of dollars on, whatever that number might be – a lot of money – for an indefinite period,” Benioff says.
Fears of ‘irreversible damage’ to literature as AI wins award for sci-fi novel
Fears of ‘irreversible damage’ to literature as AI wins award for sci-fi novel
“It was a bit of a leap of faith on their part, but they’ve been beside us every step of the way.”
Whether audiences will flock to the show remains to be seen. The series could run the risk of turning off book readers who want a carbon copy of the story as Liu wrote it.
Netflix’s English-language adaptation takes place in England, not in China. The Netflix version also features a global cast, changing the race of some of the characters.
“This is a global story,” Woo says. “This is a story of how humanity as a species confronts an existential threat from another planet, and if you’re going to represent humanity as a whole, then you know now the cast should look like humanity as a whole.”
Over the past few months, Netflix has promoted the series through splashy marketing events and initiatives.
At the show’s premiere at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, earlier this month, large holograms were projected into the night sky, with imagery including a giant floating eye.
In a packed cinema, 30-year-old animator Daiqi Cui and her husband, photographer Eric Apolly, enjoyed watching the first episode at SXSW.
Both live in Brooklyn, New York, and are fans of Game of Thrones. During the premiere, the couple were given plastic replicas of virtual reality helmets similar to the ones on the show, which they brought back on their flight home and plan to wear.
“They really captured the scenery, exactly how the book would describe it,” says 33-year-old Apolly, who has read Liu’s novels. “The environment was spot on.”
The beginning of the show addresses a dark period in China’s history, which studios that rely on China would probably avoid out of fear of blowback in the country.
The series opens with a violent scene set during the Chinese Cultural Revolution in which a physics professor is tortured.
The opening scene in the Netflix version plays out like a documentary. Hong Kong director Derek Tsang, who worked on the first two episodes, had researched oral histories of that dark historical period, where academics were beaten and some sent to re-education camps.
“We always go with what’s best for the story,” Benioff says. “There’s full knowledge that this is going to turn some people off and no story is for all people, but that’s what this story is.”
