Streaming giant Netflix Inc. NFLX has produced some of the most well-received shows of the last decade, including Stranger Things and Squid Game. The former showrunners of Game of Thrones have come up with another hit series on the way, this time from the Los Gatos, California-based company. What happened to David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, who led the hugely successful HBO series Game of Thrones for eight seasons, signed a $200 million deal with Netflix.
Warner Bros is the parent company of HBO. Discovery WBD's leadership has been under scrutiny after the company lost $20 billion in market cap between April and August of this year.
A company's loss is a company's gain. Benioff and Weiss are now adapting another book series into a TV show titled The Three-Body Problem. Details and clips of the show were already shown at Netflix's Tudum event. It is described as a history of humanity from the point of first contact with an alien civilization all the way to the end of the universe. Benedict Wong, who plays as Wong in several Marvel Cinematic Universe films, was cast alongside Game of Thrones alumni John Bradley and Liam Cunningham.
Netflix is going to be able to adapt The Three-Body Problem in 2020. Liu Cixin is a consultant on the series and Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment is producing.
The first time I read 'The Three-Body Problems' trilogy, it changed what science fiction meant to me forever, Peter Friedlander, Netflix spokesman, said at the time. Friedlander is now the head of scripted series for Netflix for the U.S. and Canada.
At the same time, I was drawn in by the story of humanity that is vulnerable to the same external threat and how this unifies and divides humans, he added.
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Why It is Important: Netflix, which has the rights to all three of Cixin's novels in the series to make an English-language adaptation, expects the series to be a blockbuster for the company.
The novel series has been adapted by Tencent Holdings TCEHY into a comic book series and into a Minecraft-style fan-made movie over the years.
It has an international appeal. Tencent has a Chinese television series version in the works and Bilibili BILI previously released a computer-animated version. Bilibili received rave reviews for their work.
Netflix could be the first major media company to release a live-action movie.
The Three-Body Problem was published in China in 2008 and was later adapted for the U.S. in 2014 with an English version. The book series won Best Novel in 2015 for Liu Cixin and is rated by many as one of the best sci-fi book series of all time.
Liu Cixin's trilogy is the most ambitious science-fiction series we have read, taking readers on a journey from the 1960s to the end of time, from life on our pale blue dot to the distant fringes of the universe, Benioff and Weiss previously said.
Netflix is working on a sequel to Squid Game. HBO is busy with a Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon, which averaged 29 million viewers for the first five episodes. HBO has additional Game of Thrones content in the pipeline, including a sequel to the original show.
The original Game of Thrones averaged 44 million viewers per episode during its eighth season in 2019.
The shares of NFLX Price Action: Netflix are up 2% to $227.54 on Tuesday.