The former Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are resurfacing over at Netflix for the highly anticipated new sci-fi series 3 Body Problem. Coming off the back of Thrones, they are no strangers to big budgets, which is just as well. Netflix is paying big for this show.
An article in the Wall Street Journal says this is costing up to $20 million per episode. This makes it the highest cost per episode for a TV show in Netflix history.
For context, the live-action adaptation of One Piece was $17 million an episode. House of the Dragon is around $20 million an episode, with most Marvel shows around $25 million, Citadel on Amazon at $50 million, and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power at $58 million an episode.
Why is it so expensive?
In physics, the three-body problem deals with the motion of three-point masses according to Newton’s laws of motion and Newton’s law of universal gravitation.
On Netflix, 3 Body Problem is an adaptation of the award-winning novels by Liu Cixin. The novels follow the story of Ye Wenjie, an astrophysicist who saw her father brutally murdered during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Later, she was conscripted by the military because of her scientific background and sent to a secret radar base in a remote region. Her fateful decision at the base echoes across space and time to a group of scientists in the present day, forcing them to face humanity’s greatest threat.
In the books, the story deals with a past, present, and future wherein Earth encounters an alien civilization from a nearby system of three sun-like stars orbiting one another. This would lean towards an FX-heavy production. There there is a large cast featuring Eiza Gonzalez, Benedict Wong, and Liam Cunningham among many others.
The eight-part series premieres on Netflix on March 21st. Here is the trailer:
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