"He didn't see anything. " The Three-Body Problem " had just finished filming on the day of his accident. I didn't have the chance to make up for this regret. " - Bai Yicong, producer and chief producer of the domestic "Three-Body Problem" talks about Lin Qi passed away.
Recently, there is another big news about "The Three-Body Problem". The Netflix version of the American drama "The Three-Body Problem" has been launched. The first season has been updated at once, with a total of eight episodes. I believe many friends have already watched it.
Brother Fei also took some time to read this drama in his busy schedule. So, what is the popularity and quality of this show? I would like to discuss this drama and its surroundings with you.
1. Popularity and cost.
According to foreign media reports, the American drama "The Three-Body Problem" was launched on Netflix streaming media, and it became very popular. It ranked second in the United States in terms of on-demand volume and popularity in 2024, second only to Guy Ritchie's American drama " Gentlemen ".
In addition, the UK's premiere ranking ranked fourth, and Netflix's version of "The Three-Body Problem" ranked among the top ten in 90 countries and regions around the world. The fact that
is so popular shows that Liu Cixin's "The Three-Body Problem" has been recognized by science fiction fans around the world. They all want to see how "The Three-Body Problem" that the United States spent huge sums of money to film is like?
The drama was jointly developed and created by the global streaming media giant Netflix in 2020 for US$160 million (the US dollar to RMB exchange rate was 7.18 yuan at the time), equivalent to 1.1 billion yuan , and the "Three Body Universe" owned by Youzu Group. The cost of
is US$160 million. The first season has 8 episodes. On average, the cost of a single episode is US$20 million, which is about 144 million yuan. It is a top-notch large-scale production. The reason why
agreed to license the copyright to them was because Netflix had promised Liu Cixin and Youzu Group that it would ask the "Game of Thrones" creative team to be responsible for script adaptation and other work.
In order to allow "Three-Body" to go abroad smoothly, Youzu Group sold the North American adaptation rights for 120 million yuan this time. Although the American TV series "The Three-Body Problem" is popular all over the world, we still overestimated them. The first season was a huge disappointment.
2. Word of mouth. One day after the premiere of the
series, the global word-of-mouth ban was lifted one after another. Unlike " Dune 2", the phenomenon of cultural differences between China and the United States appeared. This time, fans of the show almost unanimously expressed their dissatisfaction. The rating data of
is as follows: More than 7,000 viewers of
imdb rated it 7.6. Only the fifth episode scored an outstanding 8.7, while the rest basically remained between 7.0 and 8.0;
was rated 7.6 by more than 30,000 viewers of Douban. It scored 6.7 points, which is quite controversial. Most gave it three or four stars. Existing data shows that there is still room for decline; on the
metacritic (mtc) media platform, 37 media conducted systematic reviews of the American drama "The Three-Body Problem" Evaluation and scoring, the comprehensive score index is 70 points.
Among them, 27 gave positive reviews, 9 gave mixed reviews, and 1 media directly gave a negative review;
On the Rotten Tomatoes film critic platform, 78 professional film critics evaluated the American drama "The Three-Body Problem". Rotten Tomatoes The freshness rating is 76%, and more than 250 viewers rated the popcorn index at 65%.
Compared to American TV series, this kind of reputation is obviously unsatisfactory. After all, American TV series are popular around the world and almost all have Rotten Tomatoes ratings above 90%. Besides, this is a big production.
The production level and output quality are not equal, and the overall performance can only be considered mediocre. Compared to Chinese science fiction fans who have read the original work, this simply ruined Liu Cixin's original work.
3. Drama review.
The plot of the American drama "The Three-Body Problem" is divided into two parts. The first five episodes finish the first part of the original work "The Three-Body Problem", and the next three episodes give a beginning to the first half of the second part.
's first "Three-Body" novel mainly revolves around character creation and science fiction. After reading it, you will have a strong appeal and shock, and you will lament Liu Cixin's science fiction imagination.
Let’s talk about the shortcomings first:
Due to the rapid progress, the American TV series "The Three-Body Problem" did not do a good job in the background narrative, so that there was a major deviation in the character creation. This is something that fans of the original work cannot accept in any case, such as the young Ye Wenjie. relationships with several men.
especially can’t understand that Ye Wenjie and Evans kissed each other, and made the only Chinese character in the show into a venerable person in " Weekly Elimination of Three Evils ", as if this is the way North Americans treat others.
Sorry, this is definitely not possible in China.
The American drama "The Three-Body Problem" was magically modified. The role of Wang Miao was changed to a tall, short, fat and thin character, and was divided between two actresses. This weakened the role of Da Shi, and Shen Yufei and Ding Yi were eliminated.
"The Twinkle of the Universe" became "Twinkle, Twinkle Stars"; "Three-Day Volley" and "Human Row Computer" became "Dancing upon the Rooster"; cooperative games in large-scale international conferences turned into children's play house, The most important "Guzheng Project" was directly defeated by Goose Factory.
Those who have not read the original work will definitely not understand the direction of the plot and the thinking about human nature. It deviates from humanistic philosophy and omits the grand narrative, so the reputation has become like this.
Let’s talk about the advantages: some parts of
have a strong sense of science fiction, and you can see real money burning. For example, the process of immersion and dehydration in the play, especially the dehydration of children, is fully demonstrated.
As for the past that cannot be mentioned by the Chinese, the Netflix version has completely captured it. Now that this has been done, why are the fonts on both sides of the struggle conference made into Song, Hei, and Microsoft Yahei?
For this drama, Brother Fei can only give three stars, 6.5 points.
4. Periphery.
fate!
Some people tried their best to create a Chinese version of Disney. Not long after they obtained the copyright and were planning all this, he had already left us.
Some people are narrow-minded, too scheming, and too jealous. They have imitated the old man from "Breaking Bad" and vowed to put their immediate boss to death.
Some people were limited by various factors in the early stage of writing, so they transferred the copyright of their works at a low price. Unexpectedly, more than ten years later, his novels became popular all over the world.
These are the three important figures involved in "The Three-Body Problem": Lin Qi, Xu Yao and Liu Cixin.
html On March 21, the American version of "The Three-Body Problem" was launched. On March 22, the first instance of the case of Xu Yao poisoning Lin Qi finally announced the verdict. Xu Yao was sentenced to death for intentional homicide and six years in prison for throwing dangerous substances, and the death penalty was executed together.
What is going on? What do they have to do with "The Three-Body Problem"?
In other words, after Liu Cixin completed the trilogy of novels "The Three-Body Problem", he is still in a state of being unknown, because not many people have discovered this work, and Liu Cixin, who lacks a thousand-mile horse, is like a drop in the ocean.
By chance, the couple Zhang Fanfan and Song Chunyu read it and felt that it was a unique book. They immediately contacted Liu Cixin and offered to invest 100,000 yuan to purchase the film and television adaptation rights of this book.
In 2010, 100,000 yuan was a considerable amount of income for Liu Cixin. After communication, he was willing to sell the copyright of this book to the other party.
Zhang Fanfan, who obtained the film and television adaptation rights, lobbied the producers everywhere, but he also set a prerequisite that the film must be directed by himself, which discouraged many producers.
At this moment, Lynch, who was also a fan of "The Three-Body Problem", took a fancy to this project. At that time, Lynch's Youzu Network had just been successfully listed, with a market value of about 10 billion, so he naturally had spare funds available. Dominate.
He is willing to turn Zhang Fanfan's "The Three-Body Problem" into six epic science fiction movies, with an investment of about 200 million yuan in each film. This is the Feng Shaofeng and Zhang Jingchu version of "The Three-Body Problem".The filming of
was completed in 2014. After the internal preview, Lynch was very dissatisfied, and it was immediately put away until now. The current release date is 2030, and it may never come out.
In the same year, Lynch sent his novel "The Three-Body Problem" to the United States for competition. Unexpectedly, the grand science fiction narrative suddenly attracted North American readers. In 2015, "The Three-Body Problem" won the Hugo Award, science fiction's highest honor.
then got out of control. Although it became famous, the movie was really ruined by Zhang Fanfan. Under such circumstances, Lynch was willing to take over this mess.
At this time, Xu Yao contributed a lot.
Xu Yao, born in 1981, graduated from the Law Department of Southwest University of Political Science and Law in 2003, and graduated from the Insurance Law School of Paul Cézanne University in France in 2006.
has strong legal knowledge. It was he who straightened out the complicated copyright of "The Three-Body Problem" and asked Lynch to use 120 million to fully acquire the film and television adaptation rights of "The Three-Body Problem" by Zhang Fanfan. He also obtained the game adaptation rights from Liu Cixin right.
For this reason, Lynch offered Xu Yao an annual salary of 20 million, thanking him for incorporating the copyright into YOOZOO Networks, which laid the foundation for the further development of "Three-Body".
If the copyright is dispersed, it will be difficult to become bigger and stronger in the future. The best example is "Ghost Blowing the Lamp", which is the most popular song in the world.
In 2017, Lynch used the copyright of "Three-Body" to establish Youzu Pictures and "Three-Body Universe Company" within the company, and appointed Xu Yao as the company's CEO, responsible for major projects such as film and television, games, and peripheral development .
The next year, Xu Yao, who had not made many achievements, was reduced by Lynch to 5 million, and he was planning to recruit talents to replace Xu Yao.
For this reason, Xu Yao held a grudge, purchased chemicals overseas, and developed poisons himself following the example of "Dongxiehuang Pharmacist".
was narrow-minded and paranoid. When he saw that Lynch was using someone else, he was jealous, so he came up with the method of poisoning and put it into the water dispenser in Lynch's office.
Lin Qi, an outstanding entrepreneur born in the 1980s, passed away on December 25, 2020 due to ineffective treatment for illness. As Bai Yicong said at the beginning of this article, he passed away without seeing what the domestic version of "The Three-Body Problem" was like.
Xu Yao also got the consequences he deserved.
5. Profit.
The American drama "The Three-Body Problem" has once again attracted public attention. In this competition, who benefits the most?
The answer is clear at a glance, that is Lynch's Youzu.com . He is the copyright owner of "The Three-Body Problem". After his death, the inheritance will be given to his wife Xu Fenfen and three children.
"The Three-Body Problem" currently has authorized three film and television adaptation rights. One is the Goose Factory version of "The Three-Body Problem" directed by Yang Lei and starring Zhang Luyi and Yu Hewei . The other one is produced by Xiaopo Station B. The animated version of "The Three-Body Problem"; and finally the Netflix version of "The Three-Body Problem".
They only have the right to adapt it. Every development requires authorization from YOOZOO Networks' "Three Body Universe Company" and YOOZOO Pictures. That means you can do whatever you want, just pay the money.
The copyright of the American drama "Three-Body Problem" alone has recovered the initial acquisition funds, and the rest is earned. It is estimated that the authorized copyright of "Three-Body Problem" has reached more than 300 million.
In addition, the film copyright has not yet been authorized. Once it is spotted by the world's top producers and adapted into a movie, it will also be a huge income. The influence of "Three-Body" is growing day by day, and it will definitely be adapted into a movie in the future. .
The most important thing is the development of the "Three-Body" game. Youzu.com itself is a game player. In the first part, using VR to experience the world of Three-Body is a very good selling point. Once the development is successful, the game alone The income is very scary.
learned that the issue of the "Three-Body" game has been released. I believe it won't be long before everyone can play the Three-Body game at home wearing VR glasses.
So, Youzu Pictures is making a lot of money.
As the author of the original work, Liu Cixin is basically asked to check the development and adaptation, but his income is very small. In the American TV series "The Three-Body Problem", Liu Cixin was hired as a consultant and participated in some adaptation work.
He received corresponding salary returns and did not participate in the division of copyright income, which meant that Liu Cixin could only make a small profit.
6. Ending.
There is no harm without comparison. The production cost of a single episode of the domestic version of "The Three-Body Problem" produced by Goose Factory is 12 million yuan, and 30 episodes are about 360 million yuan.
invested less than three times the Netflix version, but it has created a masterpiece with a high reputation of 8.7 points on Douban. This is entirely due to the support of peers.
The reputation of the animated version of "The Three-Body Problem" has completely collapsed, and the reputation of the American TV series "The Three-Body Problem" has been controversial. But no matter what, this time Liu Cixin's science fiction "The Three-Body Problem" has truly gone abroad.
The output of Chinese science fiction culture has finally made a qualitative leap.
Do you have anything to say about the American TV series "The Three-Body Problem"?
