In yet another display of its seemingly bottomless pockets, SyFy Wire reports that Netflix has picked up the rights to Chinese sci-fi blockbuster The Wandering Earth. Since its release earlier this month, the movie has earned an eye-popping $558 million, or roughly $72 million more than Infinity War in the first two weeks of its domestic release.
That’s a lot of Renminbi. Watch the trailer below to see why Netflix picked up the film!
Intense stuff. Directed by Frant Gwo and headlined by Qu Chuxiao, Li Guangjie, Ng Man-tat and Zhao Jinmai, The Wandering Earth follows mankind’s attempts to find a new home as Earth is threatened with annihilation by our own sun.
The Wandering Earth is based on the novella of the same name by Hugo Award winner Liu Cixin, of whom Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin is a fan. Cixin is pretty popular these days, with Amazon adapting his popular Three-Body Problem for a whole lot of money. With a $50 million budget, The Wandering Earth isn’t too shabby in that department, either, and represents a step up in term’s of the scale of Chinese film production.
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Netflix hasn’t announced a release date for The Wandering Earth yet. Gwo commented on the streaming giant’s acquisition of the film:
"Audiences from over 190 countries will soon meet The Wandering Earth on Netflix. I am glad that our movie can reach to people from different parts of the world. This is a movie created for the Chinese audience around the world, and it has been positively received since its premiere, we are very excited about it. Netflix will translate it into 28 languages, enabling more viewers to enjoy it regardless of geographical and linguistic differences. I hope they will like it."
Hollywood legend James Cameron, when he’s not being strangely critical of this year’s Aquaman, has also hailed the movie. “[The Wandering Earth] shows that the film’s producers can compete with other visual effects companies around the world,” he said. “China is ready to embrace this market.”
This could get very interesting as big production studios strive to compete in an increasingly crowded market. Game on.
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h/t China Plus