Netflix Buys Rights To Stream Chinese Sci-Fi Blockbuster 'The Wandering Earth'

An anonymous reader writes from a report via NPR: Netflix announced this week that it has acquired the rights to stream Chinese sci-fi blockbuster 'The Wandering Earth,' which has already grossed more than $600 million globally and hit number two in the all-time Chinese box office rankings since it was released in theaters Feb. 5. Netflix will translate the movie into 28 languages and release it in more than 190 countries. The movie, based on a short story by Hugo award winner Liu Cixin (author of 'Three Body Problem' and 'Ball Lighting') is set in a distant future in which the earth is about to be devoured by the sun. Using propulsive engines, humans turn earth into a spaceship and try to launch it out of the solar system and the planet is saved by a Chinese hero (rather than American ones as typically seen in Hollywood sci-fi movies.) For China's film industry, the release marks a major milestone. 'Filmmakers in China see science fiction as a holy grail,' Raymond Zhou, an independent critic, told The New York Times. 'It's like the coming-of-age of the industry.' Two sci-fi movies, 'The Wandering Earth' and 'Crazy Alien,' which is also inspired by Liu's work, topped this Chinese New Year movie season. Inkoo Kang wrote at Slate that the film 'understands what American blockbusters are still loath to admit: Responding to climate change will pose infrastructural challenges on a massive order and require drastic measures on a planetary scale. Perhaps it takes a country like China, which is accustomed to a manic rate of construction and grandness of organizational possibility, to seriously consider how dramatically humanity will have to reimagine our ways of life to survive such a catastrophic force.'

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