Release date unveiled for China's "Three-Body" live-action TV drama

BEIJING, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- The long-awaited live-action television adaptation of the Hugo Award-winning science fiction novel "The Three-Body Problem" by Liu Cixin is set for release on Jan. 15.

Titled "Three-Body," the drama will open on CCTV-8, the TV drama channel of China's national broadcaster CCTV, and the online platform Tencent Video, according to an announcement made via the official social media account of CCTV-8 along with a trailer.

"The Three-Body Problem" is the first book of a sci-fi trilogy that revolves around physicist Ye Wenjie's contact with the Trisolaran civilization existing in a three-sun system and the centuries-long clashes that follow between earthlings and the aliens.

Actors Zhang Luyi and Yu Hewei led the star-studded cast in the upcoming show.

News of the live-action drama's release came on the heels of the opening of an animated adaptation of the same book on the online video-sharing platform Bilibili on Dec. 10, 2022.

The two drama releases mark key moves in terms of the movie and TV adaptations of the critically acclaimed trilogy and have been avidly followed by China's online community.

"The Wandering Earth," a sci-fi short story by Liu Cixin, became a blockbuster film in 2019 and raked in a Chinese box office total of 4.68 billion yuan (around 695 million U.S. dollars).