THR Presents ‘Q&A With ‘The Wandering Earth 2’ Director – The Hollywood Reporter

Patrick Brzeski and Frant Gou

Patrick Brzeski – Frant Joe – The Wandering Earth II – THR Presents – THR Video – 2023

In 2019, Chinese director Frant Guo brought his country’s first successful science fiction film, Wandering Earth, a high-concept adventure film set in the year 2058 with planet Earth threatened by the imminent explosion of the sun. This year, Gu expanded his vision with an introduction, Wandering Earth 2, told years before the story of the first film. Collectively, the two films grossed a whopping $1.36 billion ($700 million for the first film and $564 million for the follow-up), marking the first sci-fi franchise in China that can legitimately rival Hollywood in terms of scale and production values. The third part was announced for release in 2027.

In appreciation of Wandering Earth 2′The film’s achievements — the prequel received an average score of 82 percent from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, demonstrating high praise beyond China’s borders — was selected by the Beijing Film Bureau as the country’s official entry into the Academy Award race for Best International Feature.

Wandering Earth The franchise’s central story revolves around the coming explosion of the sun, which has inspired humanity – led by China – to build massive engines in an attempt to propel planet Earth out of the solar system in search of a new celestial home. The films is a loose adaptation of a novella by famous Chinese author Liu Cixin, who released the 2015 science fiction book. The three-body problem It has become a global phenomenon (Netflix is ​​adapting the novel into a big-budget series scheduled for release next year). The film stars some of the biggest names in Chinese cinema, including Wu Jing, Andy Lau, Wang Qi, and Li Shuijian.

“Overall, our goal was history for the future,” Guo says in a video interview with THR Presents about his overall creative approach to building the series’ sci-fi world. “It’s like a documentary filmed from the future, but being watched today. So, based on reality, we developed some variations on fiction.

Guo says he built a friendly creative relationship with Liu during the process of developing his novella into three films, which lasted for years.

“Since we are creatives and sci-fi fans, it is easy for us to communicate and we will talk about the direction we would like to go in,” he explains. “We talk about what we like about each other’s work and we’ll look for a middle ground, and we’ll try to find the right place to go.”

But the director also points out that his editing style had more to do with the spirit of Liu’s work than the details.

“I hardly use (much) the plot of his novel; “Instead, I use his essence inside—his soul,” Joe explains. “Liu’s understanding of science fiction — of all of science fiction Wandering Earththe essence of building a global vision – we employ, expand and use it through audio-visual language.

Even bigger than the first movie, Wandering Earth 2 It was one of the most elaborate films ever produced in China – and Gu admits that the scale of the production sometimes presented challenges.

“We estimated that the number of people involved in the film from start to finish reached 30,000 people,” he says. “In this way, 30,000 people meant running a very large organization. Do we have the relevant project management processes? These problems have become more apparent.”

However, Joe says he’s “very proud of the progress that’s been made” in improving production practices between the two sequels – and is excited about what he can achieve with the next completed film of the trilogy now in production.

He adds: “In my opinion, our team is making great progress.”