Production has officially commenced on The Wandering Earth 3, approximately 18 months after the project's initial announcement. The cast and crew recently gathered at China Movie Metropolis in Qingdao, Shandong province, to mark the start of filming.
This installment is confirmed to be the final chapter in the globally successful The Wandering Earth franchise.
In a groundbreaking move for the production, the team will be leveraging a proprietary Artificial Intelligence assistant named WEi.
Powered by DeepSeek R1 and supported by technology from NVIDIA and ByteDance's Volcano Engine, WEi is designed to emulate the franchise's iconic AI computer, MOSS.
Its functionalities will include the storage and instant retrieval of crucial production materials such as scripts, concept art, and cinematic references, as well as providing assistance with visual effects workflows.
Wang Hongwei, screenwriter for the third entry stated, "When working on a groundbreaking franchise like this, we all feel reluctant to put down our pens," as he revealed at the press event that the script was only 80% complete.
Director Frant Gwo added, "Innovation must be everything — we have to find ways to make it happen. We want to give audiences something they've never seen in any film before. We're raising production standards far above the first two movies to move and amaze every audience member who's been supporting us."
The first film, released in 2019, was a Chinese science fiction film directed by Frant Gwo that was partially based on Liu Cixin's award-winning 2000 short story of the same name about a daring expedition to relocate Earth out of its orbit and into interstellar space, in order to escape a dying sun.
A sequel was released in 2023, aptly titled The Wandering Earth 2, it was set 30 years after the events of the previous film and follows a new generation of heroes as they strive to preserve the world from a new menace, the Digital Life Project (DLP).
The DLP is a radical organization that believes digital immortality is a more viable option for humanity's survival than setting the planet afloat in space. The DLP wreaks havoc with protests and terrorist attacks to stop the Moving Mountain Project.
The sequel was also a critical and economic success, grossing $500 million worldwide, and it is regarded as one of the year's top science fiction films.
A synopsis for the third installment reads, "The Wandering Earth 3" will center around humanity's response to the impending destruction of the sun. In an effort to find a new home in a different solar system, colossal thrusters are constructed on the Earth's surface. These thrusters aim to move the entire planet into deep space for a journey that is fraught with crises. To save the planet, the young people of the Wandering Earth era step up for the third time, embarking on a life-and-death battle as they race against time."
In a press conference promoting the release of the third film, Liu Cixin, the author of the novel that The Wandering Earth is based on, joked, "In the first one, you blew up Jupiter, in the second one, you blew up the moon. What planet are you going to blow up in the third one?"
The Wandering Earth 3 will be released in two parts, with the first installment hitting Chinese theaters in Spring 2027.