Posted in: Netflix, streaming, TV | Tagged: D B Weiss, david benioff, game of thrones, HBO, netflix, The Three-Body Problem

The Three-Body Problem: Sci-Fi Adapt Has GOT Spiritual Successor Goals

D.B. Weiss and David Benioff laid the groundwork adapting George R. R. Martin's once-thought unfilmable A Song of Ice and Fire novel series a reality through the HBO high fantasy series Game of Thrones. While the pair have since moved on after its eight-season run and passed the torch with no plans to revisit as the premium cable network is about to launch the prequel series The House of the Dragon, they reached a deal with Netflix to develop multiple projects including a TV series based on Liu Cixin's sci-fi book trilogy in The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death's End. Weiss spoke to Entertainment Weekly about shifting between the genres and how their experience on GOT helped mold the upcoming series.

"[The Three-Body Problem is] very different from 'Game of Thrones' but in the same general zone," Weiss said. "It's like a science-fiction show that is painted on a very large canvas of space and time. It's as visual effects-heavy as Thrones was, and it pushes a lot of the same buttons in many ways that Thrones pushed — and doesn't push others in many ways." Liu's first book, published in 2008, tells of humanity's first contact with aliens. Against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, an alien civilization on the brink of collapse receives signals sent out into space by a secret military project on Earth and now has plans to invade the planet.

Weiss said The Three-Body Problem TV project was the main thing he and Benioff wanted to do once they cemented their relationship with Netflix. "We lived in that world [of Game of Thrones] literally and figuratively for a long, long time," he explains. "It just felt like, for us, it was time to move on and get excited and terrified about building something else — building lots of something else." While the duo also has the more grounded feature Metal Lords coming out in April, he also explained the benefits of tackling high-concept fantasy and sci-fi versus smaller-scale real-world stories.

"If you're dealing with reality, it's so much easier to get things wrong. Nobody can really say, 'Well, that's not how they would do things in Westeros,' because there is no Westeros," Weiss said. "But if somebody acts in a way that people in a university or high school or office building just don't act, now it just feels false to everybody. In a way, there are far fewer places to hide in a high school. If something's not working, you can't say a giant visual effects extravaganza is gonna come along in five minutes and wipe their memory of that scene, sweep it out to sea with the dragons and demons and aliens. Those giant, horrible, wonderful artificial creations aren't there to save you." The Three-Body Problem, which stars Jovan Adepo, John Bradley, Tsai Chin, Liam Cunningham, Elza González, Jess Hong, Marlo Kelly, Alex Sharp, Sea Shimooka, Zine Tseng, Saamer Usmani, and Benedict Wong, is currently filming in London with a tentative release date of 2023.

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