A former Yoozoo Games executive has been sentenced to death for the murder of a producer of the Netflix sci-fi show “3 Body Problem.”
According to the New York Times, Shanghai’s First Intermediate People’s Court found Xu Yao guilty of fatally poisoning Lin Qi, nicknamed China’s “millennial billionaire.”
Yoozoo Games, which Lin founded in 2009, owns the rights to all adaptations of the best-selling sci-fi novel, including a stage adaptation, an animated series and the Chinese-language series “Three-Body,” which premiered on last year.
Xu’s death sentence was handed down on March 22, the day after the series created by “Game of Thrones” showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss, as well as Alexander Woo, debuted on Netflix.
Lin – who is posthumously credited as executive producer of the series – died on Christmas Day 2020, aged 39, 10 days after ingesting a drink that Xu had poisoned, the court heard. as reported by CBS.
Lin Qi, CEO of Yoozoo Games Co., Ltd, pictured in 2018, two years before his death. Zhang Zhi/Red Star News/VCG via Getty Images
According to court documents cited by the Associated Press, four other people also became ill from Xu’s poisoned drinks at Yoozoo’s offices between September and December 2020, but did not die.
One of them was replacing Xu as head of the subsidiary that controlled activities related to the science fiction book series, according to the New York Times.
As Business Insider previously reported, Xu, who was also 39 at the time, was arrested by Shanghai police days after Lin checked into a local hospital after experiencing symptoms of poisoning.
Xu allegedly began poisoning his colleagues three months after Yozoo negotiated a deal with Netflix to adapt Liu Cixin’s “Remembrance of Earth’s Past” trilogy.
Wade, Jin Cheng and Sophon in “3 Body Problems”. Ed Miller/Netflix
According to the Times, Lin spent millions of dollars on franchise-related royalties and licensing in 2014, the year the first book in the trilogy was translated into English and gained many new fans, including l former President Barack Obama.
He hired Xu, a former lawyer, in 2017 to run a Yoozoo subsidiary called The Three-Body Universe, which held the rights to Mr. Liu’s novels.
However, Xu was demoted after less than three years in the role and his salary was reduced due to poor performance, the Times reported, citing Chinese media.
After debuting last month, the Netflix adaptation of “The 3-Body Problem” attracted 11 million viewers in its first four days, according to Deadline.
In his review of the series, Palmer Haasch of BI wrote: “While the series may seem like eight hours of setting up future battles, these eight hours contain truly great moments of visual spectacle, memorable performances, and thoughtful about what that actually means. To be human. »
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