China-Set Sci-Fi Space Epic, THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM, Set To Invade Theaters In July 2016

Award-winning author Liu Cixin didn’t miss a beat with his 2008 Chongqing Press publication, The Three-Body Problem. It’s the first of a sci-fi space opera franchise which ended in 2010 and each have notably sold somewhere in the vicinity of 500,000 thousand copies, and for a guy growing up with sci-fi under the enduring critical eye of China’s Communist rule, that’s something to be proud of.

The book itself is set against the backdrop of Communist China with a story that focuses on the rift that occurs among humans when an alien race’s planet under the threat of its own demise sets its sights on Earth. The novel eventually found its way to North America last year when it’s availability was announced via Tor Books.

Aside from Liu, it’s certainly benefitting a lot of people at this point, including those who’ve sought an opportunity to revamp the book into a live-action sci-fi movie for next summer, along with a game and other online content for consumers. For this, leave it to freshman film studio, Yoozoo Pictures, and game company Youzu Interactive to make all these happen with horror director Zhang Panpan at the helm for the first film’s release next July.

State-run China Film Group is also developing more of Liu’s own work into film productions as well, so there’s a good chance we won’t be running out of sci-fi thrillers from overseas any time soon.

SHANGHAI–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Yoozoo, an emerging Chinese movie studio specializing in science fiction and fantasy movies, recently announced that the movie The Three-Body Problem adapted from the Hugo Award-winning novel will be launched in July 2016, along with the game The Three-Body Problem by the same chairman company Youzu Interactive (SZSE:002174), a Shanghai-based game producer. 

The shooting of the movie completed on August 4, 2015, and the post-production work is underway. “We will pay more attention to special effects, and we hope the movie will trigger a huge transformation in the whole Chinese movie market,” said Lin Qi, CEO of Yoozoo Pictures. “The entire movie is expected to contain more than 1,700 special effect shots.” 

“We want to show the audience a movie of high quality and better processing,” said Zhang Fanfan, Director of the movie. “We’ve invited a very professional Hollywood team to help with the post-production.” 

“It seems very hard to produce a real high-cost science fiction movie in China. However, Yoozoo has made it possible. It is a good start for Chinese science fiction movies, and I hope our fans will like it,” Liu Cixin, Writer of the novel, Art Director of the movie and Cloud Architect of the game, concluded. 

“I believe game will be another important form of art in the future, parallel to novel, poetry, music and movie. However, it still has a long way to go, and I am glad to get involved in the production of the game The Three-Body Problem to make my contributions,” Liu added. 

Apart from the game, Youzu Interactive also plans to create the Webfilm, the drama and the mobile game based on the novel. 

The novel The Three-Body Problem received the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel in August 2015, becoming the first Chinese novel to win this award and marking a milestone in the history of China’s science fiction literature. It was first published in English in late 2014 and gained high popularity among science fiction fans. Recently Mark Zuckerberg, Founder of Facebook, revealed that The Three-Body Problem will be the next book for his “A Year of Books” plan. In China it also attracted a number of IT leaders, including Ma Huateng, CEO of Tencent; Li Yanhong, the CEO of Baidu; and Liu Chuanzhi, Former President of Lenovo.