The Wandering Earth 2

The Wandering Earth 2 is a 2023 Chinese science fiction action-adventure film directed and co-written by Frant Gwo, and starring Andy Lau, Wu Jing and Li Xuejian. The film is a prequel to the 2019 film The Wandering Earth, which is based on the short story of the same name by Liu Cixin, who serves as the film's producer. After the major box-office success of its predecessor, a sequel was announced by Guo on 20 November 2019 before it was greenlit on 21 July 2021, with production officially starting on 13 October 2021. The Wandering Earth 2 was released on 22 January 2023, the same day as the Chinese New Year Day. The film has grossed $604 million, making it the eighth-highest-grossing film of 2023. The film was submitted for nomination in the Best International Feature Film category of the 96th Academy Awards, as Chinese entry. Plot As the Sun becomes an expanding red giant and threatens to engulf the Earth in 100 years, the United Nations, now renamed as the United Earth Government (UEG), decides to proceed with the Moving Mountain Project, a proposal of building ten thousand gigantic nuclear fusion engines that can propel the Earth out of the Solar System towards another habitable star system. A sister project, the Lunar Exile Project, was also initiated that would involve pushing the Moon away from the Earth utilising three such fusion engines to minimise its gravitational attraction on Earth. In doing so, the UEG shuts down and bans the Digital Life Project (DLP), one that proposes continuing human civilisation through digital immortality by developing mind uploading technologies, despite skepticism and increasingly violent protests from the public.