"He didn't see anything, "The Three-Body Problem" happened to be completed on the day of his accident, and I didn't have a chance to make up for this regret. - Bai Yicong, the producer and chief producer of the domestic "Three-Body Problem", talks about Lynch's death.
Recently, there was another blockbuster news about "The Three-Body Problem", the American drama Netflix version of "The Three-Body Problem" was launched, and the first season was updated at one time, with a total of eight episodes, I believe many friends have already watched it.
Brother Brown also took some time out of his busy schedule to read the show. So, what is the popularity and quality of this drama? I would like to discuss with you about this drama and its surroundings.
1. Popularity and cost.
According to foreign media reports, the American drama "Three-Body Problem" landed on Netflix streaming media, and its popularity was directly full, ranking second in the United States in terms of on-demand and popularity, second only to Guy Ritchie's American drama "Gentlemen".
In addition, the UK premiere list won the fourth place, and in 90 countries and regions around the world, the Netflix version of "The Three-Body Problem" broke into the top ten.
can have such a high popularity, which shows that Liu Cixin's "Three-Body Problem" has been recognized by science fiction fans around the world, and they all want to see how the "Three-Body Problem" filmed by the United States with a huge amount of money is?
The show was jointly developed and created by the global streaming giant Netflix in 2020 for 160 million US dollars (at that time the exchange rate of the US dollar against the yuan was 7.18 yuan), equivalent to 1.1 billion yuan, and the "Three-Body Universe" under Youzu Group.
The cost is 160 million US dollars, 8 episodes in the first season, and on average, the cost of a single episode is 20 million US dollars, about 144 million yuan, which is a top production.
The reason why Netflix agreed to license the copyright to them is because Netflix made a promise to Liu Cixin and Youzu Group that it would ask the main creative team of "Game of Thrones" to be responsible for the script adaptation and other work.
In order to make "The Three-Body Problem" go abroad smoothly, this time Youzu Group sold the North American adaptation rights for 120 million yuan. Although the American drama "Three-Body Problem" is popular all over the world, we still overestimated them, and the first season was a big disappointment.
II. Oral monument.
One day after the series opened, the global word-of-mouth ban was lifted one after another, and there was no cultural difference between China and the United States like "Dune 2". This time, fans of the show almost unanimously expressed their dissatisfaction.
The scoring data is as follows:
IMDB's more than 7,000 viewers rated 7.6, with only episode 5 scoring 8.7 outstandingly, and the rest basically maintained between 7.0 and 8.0 points;
More than 30,000 viewers on Douban rated 6.7 points, which is quite controversial, most of them gave three stars and four stars, and the available data shows that there is still room for decline;
On the MetaCritic (MTC) media platform, 37 media have systematically evaluated and scored the American drama "Three-Body Problem", with a comprehensive scoring index of 70 points.
Among them, 27 gave positive reviews, 9 gave mixed reviews, and 1 media directly gave negative reviews;
On the Rotten Tomatoes film critics platform, 78 professional film critics evaluated the American drama "The Three-Body Problem", and the freshness of Rotten Tomatoes was 76%, and more than 250 viewers rated a popcorn index of 65%.
Compared with American dramas, such a reputation is obviously unsatisfactory, after all, the world's most popular American dramas, Rotten Tomatoes, almost all have a reputation of more than 90%, besides, this is a big production.
The production level and output quality are not equal, and the overall performance can only be regarded as decent, which is simply ruined Liu Cixin's original work compared to Chinese science fiction fans who have read the original work.
3. Drama review.
The plot of the American drama "Three-Body Problem" is divided into two sections, the first five episodes finish the first part of the original "Three-Body Problem", and the next three episodes give the first half of the second part a start.
The first "Three-Body Problem" novel mainly revolves around character creation and science fiction, and after reading it, there will be a very strong appeal and shock, and I will sigh Liu Cixin's science fiction imagination.
Let's start with the cons:
Due to the rapid progress, the American drama "Three-Body Problem" did not do a good job in the background narrative, so that there was a major deviation in the character creation, which is unacceptable to fans of the original work no matter what, such as the relationship between Ye Wenjie and several men when he was young.
Especially incomprehensible, Ye Wenjie kissed Evans and portrayed the only Chinese character in the whole play as the Venerable in "Eliminating the Three Evils Around the World", as if this is the way North Americans treat people.
I'm sorry, but this certainly won't work in China.
The American drama "Three-Body Problem" was magically changed, changing the role of Wang Miao to tall, short, fat and thin, and sharing it with the two actresses, weakening the role of Dashi, and Shen Yufei and Ding Yi were directly gone.
"Cosmic twinkle" becomes "twinkle twinkle star"; The "three-day volley" and the "human-train computer" have become "dancing when the chickens smell it"; the cooperative game in the large-scale international conference has become a child's game, and the most important "guzheng plan" has been directly beaten by the goose factory.
If you haven't read the original book, you will definitely not understand the direction of the plot and the thinking about human nature, deviating from humanistic philosophy and omitting the grand narrative, so word of mouth has become like this.
Let's talk about the pros:
Some parts of the sci-fi sense is very strong, and you can see real money burning. For example, the soaking and dehydration in the play, especially the process of the child being dehydrated, is fully displayed.
For the past that the Chinese can't mention, the Netflix version has been completely filmed, since this has been made, why are the fonts on both sides of the struggle conference made into Song, Hei, and Microsoft Yahei?
For this drama, Brother Brown can only give three stars, 6.5 points.
Fourth, the periphery.
Destiny!
Some people are trying their best to create a Chinese version of Disney, and they have left us not long after they got the rights and were planning all this.
Some people are narrow-minded, too scheming, and too jealous, so they learn from Lao Bai in "Breaking Bad", and vow to put their top boss to death and then hurry up.
There are also people who are limited by various factors in the early stage of writing, and transfer the copyright of their works at a low price, but they did not expect that after more than ten years, his novels have become popular all over the world.
These are the three important characters involved in "The Three-Body Problem": Lynch, Xu Yao and Liu Cixin.
On March 21, the American version of "The Three-Body Problem" was launched. On March 22, the first-instance verdict in the case of Xu Yao's poisoning of Lynch was finally announced, and Xu Yao was sentenced to death for intentional homicide and six years in prison for distributing dangerous substances.
What is going on? What do they have to do with "The Three-Body Problem"?
In other words, after Liu Cixin completed the novel "Three-Body Problem" trilogy, he was still in a state of no one knowing, because not many people found this work, and Liu Cixin, who lacked Maxima, was like a drop in the ocean.
By chance, after reading it, Zhang Fanfan and Song Chunyu, a couple, felt that this was a strange book, and immediately contacted Liu Cixin and was willing to invest 100,000 yuan to buy the film and television adaptation copyright of this book.
In 2010, 100,000 yuan was a lot of income for Liu Cixin, and after communication, he was willing to sell the copyright of the book to the other party.
Zhang Fanfan, who got the copyright of the film and television adaptation, lobbied the producers everywhere, but he made a precondition that the film must be directed by him himself, which discouraged many producers.
At this time, Lynch, who is also a fan of "The Three-Body Problem", took a fancy to this project, and at that time, Lynch's Youzu network had just been successfully listed, with a market value of about 10 billion, so he naturally had spare funds at his disposal.
He is willing to turn Zhang Fanfan's "Three-Body Problem" into six epic science fiction movies, each with an investment of about 200 million yuan, which is Feng Shaofeng and Zhang Jing's first version of "The Three-Body Problem".
After filming in 2014 and an internal preview session, Lynch was so dissatisfied that he was sealed to this day, with a current release date of 2030, which may never come out.
In the same year, Lynch sent the novel "The Three-Body Problem" to the United States to compete, but unexpectedly, the grand science fiction narrative attracted North American readers. In 2015, "The Three-Body Problem" won the Hugo Award, the highest honor in science fiction.
Then it was out of control, although the reputation went out, but the movie was really smashed by Zhang Fanfan, in this case, Lynch is still willing to take this mess under his command.
At this time, Xu Yao made a lot of contributions.
Xu Yao, born in 1981, graduated from the Law Department of Southwest University of Political Science and Law in 2003 and the Faculty of Insurance Law of Paul Cézanne University in France in 2006.
has a strong legal knowledge, that is, he straightened out the intertwined copyright of "The Three-Body Problem", and asked Lynch to use 120 million to fully acquire Zhang Fanfan's "Three-Body Problem" film and television adaptation rights, and also got the game adaptation rights from Liu Cixin.
For this reason, Lynch gave Xu Yao an annual salary of 20 million yuan, thanking him for incorporating copyright into the Youzu network, which laid the foundation for the further development of "Three-Body Problem".
If the copyright is scattered, it will be difficult to become bigger and stronger in the future, and the best example is "Ghost Blowing the Lamp" sung by Tianxia Ba.
In 2017, Lynch used the copyright of "Three-Body Problem" to establish Youzu Pictures and "Three-Body Universe Company" within the company, and appointed Xu Yao as the company's CEO, responsible for major projects such as film and television, games, and peripheral development.
The following year, Xu Yao, who had not made much achievements, was reduced to 5 million by Lynch, and he was ready to plan to replace Xu Yao with talents.
For this reason, Xu Yao held a grudge, bought chemicals overseas, and developed poisons by himself following the example of the "Eastern Evil Yellow Pharmacist".
Narrow-minded and paranoid, jealous when he saw that Lynch was going to use someone else, he came up with the idea of poisoning and put it in the water dispenser in Lynch's office.
Lynch, an outstanding entrepreneur born in the 80s, passed away on December 25, 2020 due to ineffective treatment. is the same as what Bai Yicong said at the beginning of this article, he has not seen what the domestic version of "The Three-Body Problem" is like, so he passed away.
Xu Yao also got the end he deserved.
5. Profit.
The American drama "Three-Body Problem" has once again attracted the attention of public opinion, who will profit the most in this competition?
The answer is clear at a glance, that is Lynch's Youzu network, he is the copyright owner of "The Three-Body Problem", and after his death, the inheritance will be passed to his wife Xu Fenfen and three children.
"Three-Body Problem" is currently authorized to have three film and television adaptation rights, one is the goose factory version of "Three-Body Problem", which is directed by Yang Lei, starring Zhang Luyi and Yu Hewei, and the other is the animated version of "Three-Body Problem" made by Xiaopo Station B;
They only have the right to adapt, and every development requires the authorization of Youzu Network "Three-Body Universe Company" and Youzu Pictures, that is, you can do it if you want to, just pay the money.
The copyright of the American drama "Three-Body Problem" alone has recovered the funds originally acquired, and the rest is all earned, and it is estimated that the authorized copyright of "Three-Body Problem" has reached more than 300 million.
In addition, the film copyright has not yet been authorized, once it is favored by the world's top producers and adapted into a movie, it will also be a lot of income, and the influence of "The Three-Body Problem" is growing day by day, and it will definitely be adapted into a movie in the future.
The most important thing is the development of the "Three-Body Problem" game, Youzu Network itself is a game-making background, and in the first part, it takes VR to experience the three-body world, which is a very good selling point, once the development is successful, the income of the game alone is very scary.
It was learned that the issue of the "Three-Body Problem" game has been released, and I believe that it will not be long before everyone can wear VR glasses to play the three-body game at home.
Therefore, Youzu Pictures has made a lot of money.
Liu Cixin, as the author of the original work, basically asks him to check on the development and adaptation, but his income is very small, and in the American drama "Three-Body Problem", Liu Cixin was invited as a consultant to participate in a little adaptation work.
He received the corresponding salary return and did not participate in the sharing of copyright income, which means that Liu Cixin can only make a small profit.
VI. Epilogue.
There is no harm if there is no comparison, and the production cost of a single episode of the domestic version of "Three-Body Problem" produced by the goose factory is 12 million yuan, and the production cost of 30 sets is 360 million yuan.
Less than three times the investment in the Netflix version, but it has created a Douban 8.7 points and a high reputation masterpiece, which is completely set off by peers.
The reputation of the animated version of "The Three-Body Problem" has collapsed completely, and the reputation of the American drama "The Three-Body Problem" has been controversial, but no matter what, this time Liu Cixin's "Three-Body Problem" sci-fi can be regarded as going abroad in a real sense.
The export of Chinese science fiction culture has finally made a qualitative leap.
Do you have something to say about the American drama "Three-Body Problem"?