“The Wandering Earth 2” Surpasses $15M in China’s Pre-Sale Box Office

Before “The Wandering Earth 2” film officially debuts during China’s upcoming Spring Festival holiday, a special watching event was held in Beijing on January 18, allowing guests from the film industry and a scientific advisory team to be the first to watch it. Many reacted positively, claiming that the film had surpassed the previous work. So far, the film’s pre-sale box office proceeds have exceeded 100 million yuan ($14.75 million).

The Wandering Earth, released in 2019, ranked fifth in the box office list of Chinese film history with 4.65 billion yuan, which is considered by many viewers as the first blooming year of Chinese science fiction movies. After a lapse of four years, director Frant Gwo will bring the audience back with The Wandering Earth 2.

The new film revolves around the story before the previous work. The digital life dispute is beginning to emerge, the lunar engine is exposed for the first time, and the “solar crisis” is on the verge, which causes great suspense. The acting team includes Jacky Wu, Andy Lau, Li Xuejian and Sha Yi. A poster reading “Danger at Present” was released, in which the characters are in different scenes and face different challenges.

Some viewers said that the second film surpassed the first film in all aspects, and there were more special effects. In terms of plot, some viewers said that because it is the prequel to the first film, it will not affect them at all even if they have not seen the first film. Some people said that the only drawback is that the film is completely divorced from the original writing, while others believed that the screenwriter’s extension of the plot made it more convincing.

At a film-watching event on January 18, Shi Kan from the Institute of Computing Technology Chinese Academy of Sciences said, “As the father of a three-year-old son, I cried many times in the middle. The film’s discussion of science and humanities, especially human nature, benefited me a lot.”

Wang Yuanzhuo, a scientific consultant of the film and a researcher at the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said, “The plot of the film is compact, the picture is shocking, which shows the intentions of the crew.”

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As one of the key figures of the Wandering Earth series, Jacky Wu revealed details about the behind-the-scenes production of the film. “The completion of our computer graphic technology is very brilliant. For example, from a small part to the space station 90,000 kilometers away, the audience will feel that the lens from micro to macro content is very shocking, and there are many surprises worth looking forward to in the film.”

The Wandering Earth 2 lasts 173 minutes. “This movie is quite long. In fact, director Frant Gwo once wanted to divide it into two movies. With such a large amount of information and more than 70,000 words of script, it is a huge and meticulous work to deliver the most wonderful things in such a short time,” said Wu.