The Epic Chinese Sci-Fi Film THE WANDERING EARTH Gets Picked Up by Netflix
This past weekend I managed to catch a theatrical screening of China’s first mainstream sci-fi movie The Wandering Earth, and this thing is epic! This was a super ambitious project that was unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.
While the movie was far from perfect, it was visually stunning, has an extremely interesting story, and it managed to entertain the hell out of me, which is the reason why we love going to the movies! The movie has also made over $600 million so far since it was released on February 5th.
Anyway, the film currently has a limited release in theaters, but for those of you that won’t be able to catch in theaters, don’t worry! Netflix just bought the rights to it!
The film is an adaptation of the 2000 novella of the same name written by Liu Cixin, and the film tells the epic story of people from around the world working together to save the planet from our aged, imploding sun by building giant thrusters to move Earth out of orbit and sail to a new star system. After 2,500 years, young people continue the fight for everyone's survival.
I’ve included a trailer for the film for you to watch below to give you a better idea of what to expect from this movie. Jerry Zhang, manager of content acquisition at Netflix, had this to say in a statement:
“Netflix is committed to providing entertainment lovers with access to a wide variety of global content. With its high-quality production and story-telling, we believe that ‘The Wandering Earth’ will be loved by sci-fi fans around the world.”
Netflix adds:
“The movie is a majestic feast for the eyes with massive production scale rarely seen in Mandarin films. Its post-production and special effects work spanned two years, undergoing more than 3,000 conceptual designs, and featuring over 10,000 specifically built props, while employing an impressive 2,000 special effects shots and a substantial amount of computer graphics shots.”
The Wandering Earth was directed and written by Frant Gwo, and the cast includes Qu Chuxiao, Li Guangjie, Ng Man-tat and Zhao Jinmai, with a special appearance by Wu Jing.