Eve Crosbie
Apr 1, 2024
"3 Body Problem" debuted on Netflix on March 21, the day before executive Xu Yao was sentenced to death. Netflix
Lin Qi, who helped bring "3 Body Problem" to screens, died before the series aired.
Lin Qi, who helped bring "3 Body Problem" to screens, died before the series aired.
He was poisoned in 2020 by Xu Yao, who headed up a subsidiary that oversaw adaptations of the book.
Now, more than three years later, Xu has been given the death sentence.
A former Yoozoo Games executive has been handed a death sentence for the murder of a producer on Netflix's sci-fi show "3 Body Problem."
The Shanghai First Intermediate People's Court found Xu Yao guilty of fatally poisoning Lin Qi, who was dubbed China's "billionaire millennial," The New York Times reported.
Yoozoo Games, which Lin founded in 2009, owns the rights for all adaptations of the sci-fi bestseller, including a stage adaptation, an animated series, and the Chinese-language series "Three-Body" which premiered last year.
Xu's sentence of capital punishment was handed to him on March 22, the day after the series, created by the "Game of Thrones" showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and Alexander Woo, debuted on Netflix.
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Lin — who is posthumously credited as an executive producer on the series — died on Christmas Day 2020, at the age of 39, 10 days after he ingested a beverage that Xu had laced with poison, the court heard, as reported by CBS.
Lin Qi, the CEO of Yoozoo Games Co. Ltd, in 2018, two years before his death.
Zhang Zhi/Red Star News/VCG via Getty Images
Four other people also fell ill as a result of Xu poisoning drinks in the Yoozoo offices between September and December 2020 but did not die, according to court documents cited by the Associated Press.
One of them was Xu's replacement as the head of the subsidiary that controlled business related to the sci-fi book series, per The New York Times.
As Business Insider previously reported, Xu, who was 39 at the time, was detained by Shangai police a few days after Lin entered a local hospital after experiencing symptoms of poisoning.
Xu is believed to have begun poisoning his colleagues three months after Yozoo brokered a deal with Netflix to adapt Liu Cixin's "Remembrance of Earth's Past" trilogy.
Wade, Jin Cheng, and Sophon in "3 Body problem." Ed Miller/Netflix
Per The Times, Lin dropped millions of dollars on the copyrights and licenses connected to the franchise in 2014, the year the first book in the trilogy was translated into English and gained a bevy of new fans, including former president Barack Obama.
He hired Xu, a former lawyer, in 2017, to head a subsidiary of Yoozoo called The Three-Body Universe that held the rights to Liu's novels.
However, Xu was demoted after less than three years in the role and had his pay slashed due to poor performance, The Times reported, citing Chinese media.
After debuting last month, the Netflix adaptation of "The 3 Body Problem" garnered 11 million viewers in its first four days, Deadline reported.
In her review of the series, BI's Palmer Haasch wrote: "While the show can feel like eight hours of setting up stakes for future battles, those eight hours contain truly great moments of visual spectacle, memorable performances, and ruminations on what it actually means to be human."
Four other people also fell ill as a result of Xu poisoning drinks in the Yoozoo offices between September and December 2020 but did not die, according to court documents cited by the Associated Press.
One of them was Xu's replacement as the head of the subsidiary that controlled business related to the sci-fi book series, per The New York Times.
As Business Insider previously reported, Xu, who was 39 at the time, was detained by Shangai police a few days after Lin entered a local hospital after experiencing symptoms of poisoning.
Xu is believed to have begun poisoning his colleagues three months after Yozoo brokered a deal with Netflix to adapt Liu Cixin's "Remembrance of Earth's Past" trilogy.
Wade, Jin Cheng, and Sophon in "3 Body problem." Ed Miller/Netflix
Per The Times, Lin dropped millions of dollars on the copyrights and licenses connected to the franchise in 2014, the year the first book in the trilogy was translated into English and gained a bevy of new fans, including former president Barack Obama.
He hired Xu, a former lawyer, in 2017, to head a subsidiary of Yoozoo called The Three-Body Universe that held the rights to Liu's novels.
However, Xu was demoted after less than three years in the role and had his pay slashed due to poor performance, The Times reported, citing Chinese media.
After debuting last month, the Netflix adaptation of "The 3 Body Problem" garnered 11 million viewers in its first four days, Deadline reported.
In her review of the series, BI's Palmer Haasch wrote: "While the show can feel like eight hours of setting up stakes for future battles, those eight hours contain truly great moments of visual spectacle, memorable performances, and ruminations on what it actually means to be human."
The executive on Netflix's '3 Body Problem' who murdered its super-rich producer practiced by poisoning cats and dogs: report
Mikhaila Friel
Apr 2, 2024,
Former Yoozoo Games executive Xu Yao received a death sentence for murdering his boss.
Lin Qi died in 2020 after ingesting poison, The New York Times reported.
Xu was inspired by "Breaking Bad" and poisoned animals for practice, Caixin reported.
An executive who worked on Netflix's "3 Body Problem" practiced killing cats and dogs before fatally poisoning his boss, the Chinese outlet Caixin reported.
The New York Times reported that Xu Yao, a former Yoozoo Games executive, was given a death sentence on March 22 after fatally poisoning the company's founder Lin Qi, dubbed China's "billionaire millennial," in 2020.
Lin had a net worth of around 6.8 billion yuan ($940m) when he died, per the Hurun China Rich List.
Yoozoo Games owns the rights to the Chinese-language sci-fi series, "3 Body Problem," which made its Netflix debut in March. The show is based on Liu Cixin's award-winning "Remembrance of Earth's Past" book trilogy.
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Xu, who joined Yoozoo Games in 2017, killed Lin due to a "dispute over running the business," according to a statement by Shanghai First Intermediate People's Court, cited by the Associated Press.
The dispute was after Xu got demoted and received a pay cut due to poor performance, according to the Caixin report cited by The Times.
Xu reportedly plotted Lin's murder in retaliation. He built a lab near Shanghai and experimented with hundreds of poisons from the dark web — often by testing them on pet animals, including cats and dogs — according to Caixin.
Caixin reported that Xu was inspired by the series "Breaking Bad," about a high school teacher diagnosed with lung cancer who begins to make and sell methamphetamine.
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The court said four other employees fell ill, but were not killed, after Xu poisoned beverages in the office between September and December 2020 due to grievances he had with two of them, AP reported.
Chinese media named one of the employees poisoned as Zhao Jilong, VP of the company's film division, Variety reported in 2021.
Zhao may have been targeted due to jealousy over his involvement with the company's deal with Netflix. Lin and Zhao were both named as executive producers of "3 Body Problem" in the official announcement, while Xu was left uncredited, Variety reported.
Writing on his WeChat account after Xu's sentencing, Zhao said: "Justice has been served," according to Chinese state media cited by The Times.
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Representatives for Yoozoo Games and Netflix did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member.
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