Guo Fan: The success of "The Wandering Earth" is due to the tolerance of the audience, and the gap with Hollywood is not small

According to Hong Kong media reports, "The Wandering Earth" director Guo Fan and producer Gong Geer recently held a fan meeting in Manhattan. Although the film, as China's first science fiction blockbuster, has achieved great success at the box office, Guo Fan said that Chinese science fiction films are still 25 to 30 years behind Hollywood in production, and about 10 years behind in special effects production. Compared with top science fiction directors Nolan and Cameron, there is probably a 100-year gap. Guo Fan said: "This film has many shortcomings objectively, and the reason for its box office success is mainly due to the audience's tolerance."

"The Wandering Earth" director Guo Fan takes a selfie in Manhattan

He also said that the Chinese who wrote "Journey to the West" have never lacked imagination, but what they lack in shooting science fiction movies is the technology and experience in making movies. We do not have Hollywood's special effects technology, and many shots in the movie are done manually. For example, in a shot of the space station, there are more than 100 screens in front of Wu Jing. According to Hollywood production, special effects can be used, but we had to use more than 100 real screens, connected to more than 100 laptops for control at the back end, and all operations were done manually.

Science fiction films correspond to the national aerospace industry

Guo Fan said frankly that "The Wandering Earth" is just the beginning of the development of Chinese science fiction films, so the audience of the film is mainly Chinese audiences, and being released in North America does not mean "going global". He said that the current science fiction films correspond to the country one by one, and only when the country's aerospace industry is strong enough can the science fiction films produced be more trusted by the audience; when China's film industry continues to improve and makes science fiction films with a global perspective, then it can be said that Chinese science fiction films are going global.

Guo Fan

Guo Fan also pointed out that if Liu Cixin can continue to grant copyrights, he may launch a "Wandering Earth" series of films in the future. He also said: "I hope that this success will make more audiences like science fiction films, and more investors will invest in science fiction films, giving more science fiction directors opportunities."