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The Wandering Earth, China’s second highest-grossing film of all time, is now on Netflix, with little warning or advertisement from the streaming service. Netflix announced it was acquiring the film shortly after its theatrical release in China in February, but no release date was ever announced, and the film was not included on Netflix’s monthly list of new releases.
China’s first highest-grossing film is 2017’s Wolf Warrior 2, which took in $870 million worldwide. Comparatively, The Wandering Earth saw $699.7 million in the box office since its release in China.
Plot-wise, The Wandering Earth—which was directed by Frant Gwo and is based on a novella by Hugo Award-winning author Liu Cixin—feels similar to Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. The Earth’s final days are near, and humans have been forced to live underground thanks to severe weather conditions. One astronaut name Liu Peiqiang (actor Wu Jing) must venture out on a dangerous space mission to save the planet, and before he does so, he promises his son, Liu Qi (actor Qu Chuxiao) that he will return.
Unlike Interstellar—which follows Matthew McConaughey on his earth-saving journey and leaves his young daughter at home, for the most part—The Wandering Earth splits its focus between the son Liu Qi, who gets himself into all kinds of futuristic shenanigans, and the dad, who soon is dealing with rogue artificial intelligence. But like Interstellar, it’s a full-scale, epic space journey—the first of its kind, really, in China.
Netflix, a global company, has been steadily expanding its foreign language acquisitions in recent years. However, the streaming service is not available in China, barred by the Communist Party’s internet regulations. China has its own version of a streaming platform called iQiyi Inc., which Netflix previously had a deal with, but the deal has since expired. Still, Netflix is appealing to a larger audience of Mandarin-speakers with The Wandering Earth and other acquired Chinese films like Sword Master, Monster Hunt and more.
