Netflix’s upcoming adaptation of Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem is moving along: According to the streaming service, it’s brought on Hong Kong director Derek Tsang as a director for the series.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Tsang will direct at least the first episode of the project and will “help set the tone for the ambitious series.” He’s best known for his 2019 film Better Days, a romantic crime drama, for which he earned considerable critical acclaim in Hong Kong’s film circles, as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best International Feature film. There’s been no other news about the series, other than reports that actress Eiza Gonzalez has been in talks to join the project.
Netflix announced last year that Game of Thrones’ David Benioff and D.B. Weiss would be adapting the trilogy for the streaming service as part of their overall deal there. The Last Jedi‘s Rian Johnson/Ram Bergman, The Terror: Infamy‘s Alexander Woo, Plan B Entertainment, and Rosamund Pike’s Primitive Streak are all attached as producers.
An adaptation of the epic science fiction trilogy has been in the works for some time. There was a film produced in China several years ago, which was ultimately shelved. Back in 2018, Amazon was apparently interested in adapting the trilogy, and the folks at Yoozoo Pictures (the company behind another adaptation of Cixin’s, The Wandering Earth), were at work on an animated adaptation in 2019.
The book trilogy was originally serialized online in China in 2006, and formally published there in 2008, before an English translation was published in 2014 by Tor Books—the translation was a huge success, counting the likes of then-President Barack Obama as its fans. The series is a suitably ambitious one for the folks who adapted Game of Thrones: The entire trilogy runs from the 1970s all the way to the end of time, and brings plenty of interesting characters and action with it.
Netflix hasn’t said when the series will debut on its platform.
