How Game Of Thrones Creators Ended Up Swapping Star Wars For Netflix's 3 Body Problem

Reports of filmmakers signing on to direct a "Star Wars" movie have come to elicit fewer squeals of delight than wisecracks guesstimating how long until they leave the project over "creative differences." At this stage, Patty Jenkins, Taika Waititi, Colin Trevorrow, Kevin Feige, "Game of Thrones" showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, and more have all entered the revolving door that is signing on to helm a Star War for Disney, only to walk right back out again or find themselves going in circles despite their continued reassurances that they will, one day, walk all the way in.

With D&D making the press rounds again lately after, one assumes, five years of holing up in a remote cabin in the wilderness while they waited for the furor over the final season of "Thrones" to die down, it's given journalists the chance to pick their brains about their own abandoned vacation to a galaxy far, far away. The pair were announced to be working on a "Star Wars" film before "Thrones" reached its fiery conclusion, only to depart after locking down a mega-deal with Netflix a year later. 

In recent interviews, Benioff and Weiss have confirmed their idea was to make a movie about the first Jedi, which Lucasfilm apparently wasn't interested in at the time despite having since tapped James Mangold to essentially do the same thing. (Mangold's actually done this dance before himself, having flirted with directing a Boba Fett movie by way of a borderline R-rated Spaghetti Western some years ago.) Looking back, however, the pair feel that it all worked out for the best. 

"Star Wars shaped our lives," Benioff told GQ, "but there have been so many movies at this point, and so many TV series." This is also made the prospect of adapting author Liu Cixin's sci-fi novel series "The Three-Body Problem" into a TV series all the more enticing to them.

The upside to being the first to adapt an acclaimed sci-fi property is that it spares you from being compared to what's come before. That being the case, Benioff and Weiss were intrigued when Peter Friedlander, the Head of Scripted Series at Netflix in the U.S. and Canada, suggested they check out Liu's books shortly after the pair closed their deal with the company. As Benioff recalled: 

"It was a little bit fresher. As opposed to being, like, the 43rd dudes to come on a 'Star Wars' project, to come in early on with '3 Body Problem,' something brand new, was exciting."

Liu's novels have since been turned into a 30-episode Chinese series that debuted in its homeland in 2023 before quietly making its way onto Peacock last month. For the vast majority of viewers in the West, though, "3 Body Problem" will mark their first time experiencing the story on the small screen. That itself could be both a blessing and a curse. 

Should Benioff, Weiss, and co-creator Alexander Woo stick the landing, it could end up giving Netflix an answer to its rivals' own prestige literary sci-fi TV offerings (like "Foundation" at Apple TV+). If they don't, then it could poison the well and prevent Liu's other books from ever getting the same treatment. It's quite different from the situation with "Star Wars" — the Mouse House would've no doubt continued to milk that IP dry regardless of whether Benioff and Weiss' project flopped or soared.

"3 Body Problem" (check out the full-length trailer here) stars Rosalind Chao, Benedict Wong, Jovan Adepo, Eiza González, John Bradley, Liam Cunningham, Jonathan Pryce, and many more. You can stream the first season on Netflix starting on March 21, 2024.