Top 10 cultural events in 2014

Chinese writer Liu Cixin's science fiction

Yoozoo Pictures announces on Nov. 27, 2014, that they will spend 1.2 billion yuan to make the best-selling Chinese science fiction trilogy "Three Body" into a series of 6 movies.

Yoozoo Pictures announced on Nov. 27 that they will spend 1.2 billion yuan (US$195.5 million) to make the best-selling Chinese science fiction trilogy "Three Body" into a series of 6 movies.

Yoozoo Pictures, a newly established movie company headed by online game entrepreneur Lin Qi and online novelist Kong Xiangzhao, revealed that each film in the "Three Body" series will cost 200 million yuan (US$32.58 million) to make. Zhang Fanfan, a newbie horror movie creator who directed "Lost In Panic Room" and "Lost In Panic Cruise," has been named to direct the films.

Liu Cixin, the original writer of the "Three Body" trilogy, will be an executive producer for the "Three Body" movies. Liu is one of the most popular and most prolific science fiction writers in China. He is an eight-time winner of the Galaxy Award for science-fiction writing and a recipient of the Nebula Award.

The first volume in Liu's "Three Body" trilogy was published in English in the United States by Tor Books on Nov. 11, 2014 under the title "The Three-Body Problem." It is the first Chinese science fiction novel translated into English.

Several of Liu's other science fiction works will also be adapted into movies. According to China Film Group, the movie version of "The Wandering Earth" will have a budget of US$50 million, while "Micro Era" will have a budget of US$40 million and "The Era of Supernova" will get US$60 million.