3 Body Problem has landed on the top spot of Netflix’s Top 10 list with 15.6 million views, but is it good enough for a series which reportedly boasts a price tag of $20 million per episode?
To put it in comparison, Avatar: The Last Airbender debuted in the number one spot upon its release with 21.2 million views. The show would be dethroned by The Gentlemen, which debuted to 12.2 million views and rose to 20.1 million views the following week. While viewership numbers for 3 Body Problem are nothing to sneeze at, the sizeable budget could cause Netflix to pause when it comes to renewing the series.
David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and Alexander Woo have envisioned a multi-season arc for the series, which could span between three or four seasons. “Well, there’s three novels in the trilogy,” Woo told GamesRader last month. “The novels get longer and longer so I wouldn’t say it maps out exactly to three. We have some really strong ideas about what to do in a season two, and then it’s a little hazier down the line. But we want to get to the end, we want to get to the end of the trilogy, and whether that’s three or four, you know, or some other number. The goal is to get to the end of the trilogy and it seems like it would map out over probably, certainly more than two seasons but beyond that, it’s hard to know exactly.“
Should 3 Body Problem wind up spanning three seasons, it would cost Netflix nearly half a billion dollars, and that’s assuming the budget stays consistent.
“A young woman’s fateful decision in 1960s China reverberates across space and time into the present day,” reads the synopsis for 3 Body Problem. “When the laws of nature inexplicably unravel before their eyes, a close-knit group of brilliant scientists join forces with an unflinching detective to confront the greatest threat in humanity’s history.“
The series has received generally positive reviews, but our own Alex Maidy didn’t exactly love it. “I found it very hard to engage with this story, these characters, and this series,” Maidy wrote. “A misfire in every way, 3 Body Problem has some talented actors delivering some memorable moments, but none of it adds up to an experience that is satisfying, fulfilling, or even all that enjoyable.” You can check out the rest of Maidy’s review right here.