David Benioff and DB Weiss are in high spirits. Game of Thrones is a distant memory and its creators are hard at work on their latest TV show, the 3 Body Problem, but there are no dragons in sight.
Without spoiling the plot, it's about advanced aliens invading Earth. They are fleeing an unstable solar system with three suns orbiting each other, hence the name “three-body problem.''
The book features two main characters, a scientist and a detective, trying to outwit the aliens, but the producers of the TV show felt that this was not enough.
So, with Liu's blessing, five young and diverse Oxford scientists set out to defeat the aliens. Technically, the fifth of the four, played by Game of Thrones' John Bradley, is a billionaire who has used his scientific knowledge to build a multi-million pound snacking empire.
Snacks always come in handy in times of crisis.
They desperately try to solve their problems in a dangerous virtual reality game that happens to have three suns, while also trying to save Earth from an onslaught of aliens.
Watching over them are a world-weary Mantunian detective played by Doctor Strange's Benedict Wong and a high-ranking official played by Game of Thrones' Liam Cunningham.
Weiss, the creator of Thrones, explained that he was struck by the complexity of the film, saying, “It's different than anything I've ever read, and it's certainly different from what I was thinking of putting on screen.” ”
Other fans of Liu's novels include former US President Barack Obama, who described the novels as “highly imaginative,” although he ultimately declined a bit role on the show. did.
“When we tried to get him to do a cameo, he signed a really funny note,” Benioff told USA Today.
“The idea was, 'I think you should save yourself in case there's an actual alien invasion.'”
But after having such success in the fantasy genre, why did Benioff and Weiss leave it behind?
They told BBC News it was simply time to move on.
But Benioff and Weiss had spent “10 years” making 73 episodes in Westeros and didn't want to return to that world.
It was “the best experience of our lives,” Weiss says, but they really wanted “a new challenge on every level.”
Weiss calls the three-body issue “as far from what we did on 'Thrones' as you can get.”
They had to be selective in preparation for the new challenge.
The problem was that Game of Thrones set a high bar for their expectations.
“When you come to work every day, you're kind of surprised that you can actually make a living doing this, and that's what you're pursuing,” Weiss said.
“When you choose a job to spend years of your life in, you don't want to make the wrong choice. It's easy to get bored.”
The duo that ultimately decided on Liu's book joined forces with Alexander Wu, who created the vampire TV series True Blood, to form a trio.
Wu called the novel “a very exciting challenge to adapt,” adding, “There were ideas, images, and stories there that I could hardly imagine how one writer could come up with this.” .
He agrees that it is important to choose the right project, since it will necessarily involve a lot of effort.
“If you don't feel refreshed by it, it's just a job. Unless you love it, it's a really, really horrible way to whittle away at your life,” he says.
Over the past four and a half years, the three have been working on the 3 Body Problem with approximately 1,000 staff members.
The book was full of thorny scientific questions and was not easy to translate into a television show.
A crash course in physics was needed, but the show's creators say the course would have been lost without the help of two science experts.
They spoke to Matthew Kinsey, who Weiss said was “part of the team that discovered the Higgs boson,” and Bobak Ferdowsi, an aeronautical engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“Boback was in the control room for many of the rocket launches,” Weiss explains.
The two scientists were very supportive throughout the series, “kind of teaching me physics for dummies”.
The show began during China's Cultural Revolution in 1966 and traveled to Badajoz, Spain, the United Nations Headquarters in New York, Cape Canaveral, Florida, and on to present-day England. Plus, quite a bit of outer space.
Weiss and Benioff were familiar with Britain, having used it as a filming location for Game of Thrones. The return was a perfect excuse to meet up with former cast “friends of Thrones,” including actors Bradley, Cunningham, and Sir Jonathan Pryce.
Bradley played the terrifyingly kind-hearted Samwell Tarly on Thrones, and Benioff says he was happy to create a completely different character for him.
“group [Weiss] And I was in a pub in Belfast and I saw John talking to an American tourist. He was very funny and sarcastic. It was a side of him that we were familiar with because we had spent a lot of time with him.
“The real Jon looks nothing like Samwell, so I thought it would be fun to write a role that was closer to the real Jon.”
As a result, snack merchant Jack Rooney appeared and got the show's best one-liner.
When they cast Wade, the gruff character who leads the war against the aliens, they went against the book's depiction of him as a 40-year-old American who looks like Hugh Jackman.
Instead, they hired Liam Cunningham, who played the knight Ser Davos on Game of Thrones.
“I love Liam, but I don't think anyone can accuse him of looking like Hugh Jackman!” Benioff laughs.
“But he's a really great guy and again, it's a completely different role.”
They also cast Sir Jonathan, who played the religious fanatic High Sparrow in Thrones, to play billionaire oil tycoon Mike Evans.
Benioff called him “one of the great living actors,” while also saying they “basically begged” Doctor Strange star Benedict Wong to play the Mantunian detective Dar Shi. added.
The show has very strong and devilishly bright female characters, played by Rosalind Chao, Jess Hong, Zene Tseng, Eiza Gonzalez, and Marlo Kelly, that hold the story together.
It's clear that Benioff, Weiss, and Wu are enjoying this journey. Right after I asked him not to tell me what happened in the final episode, Benioff dropped a major plot spoiler into the conversation.
“I just hope people aren't too upset about the world exploding in Episode 8 and keep watching,” he deadpans.
They immediately burst into laughter – he said it just to see my face.
I can report that it turns out to be completely false.
She added: “The global success of the Three-Body series changed everything, catapulting grand themes of technological prowess and the fate of humanity into the public consciousness.”
The show's creators hope to capitalize on this popularity and hope to complete the story, with the novel being the first part of a trilogy called “Memories of Earth's Past.”
“I hope it's as big as 'Thrones,'” Benioff says.
“Our real goal is to get to the third season.”
3 Body Problems will be released on Netflix on March 21st.