BEIJING — China was a latecomer to space exploration, and in the movies, it has been a latecomer to science fiction, too. That is about to change.

The country’s first blockbuster set in space, “The Wandering Earth,” opens Tuesday amid grandiose expectations that it will represent the dawning of a new era in Chinese filmmaking.

It is one in a series of ambitious, big-budget films tackling a genre that, until now, has been beyond the reach of most filmmakers here — technically and financially. Those movies include “Shanghai Fortress,” about an alien attack on Earth, and “Pathfinder,” about a spaceship that crashes on a desert planet.

“Filmmakers in China see science fiction as a holy grail,” said Raymond Zhou, an independent critic, who noted that Hollywood had set the technological standards, and thus audience expectations, very high.