LIN Qi, the producer on Netflix’s The Three-Body Problem, has died following reports that he was poisoned.
The Chinese producer, 39, who was also the chairman of Chinese company Yoozoo Group, was allegedly poisoned by his co-worker.
According to Chinese media, police said that one of Lin’s colleagues, giving only his surname as Xu, was a key suspect.
The suspect remains in police custody.
Lin was rushed to hospital after the suspected murder, and yesterday his condition was described as stable.
However, the producer died today, according to Caixin Global.
According to local media, an executive split led to the assault on Lin, which was allegedly carried out with poison in a cup of pu-erh tea.
His death has now been reported among many local news outlets, including China News.
The company which he was chairman of, Yoozoo Group, sold the adaptation rights of the best-selling sci-fi books to Netflix.
Liu Cixin’s Three-Body Problem saga – which consists of the three books Remembrance of Earth’s Past, The Dark Forest and Death’s End – tells the story of Earth’s first contact with an alien civilization.
The first follows Ye Wenjie, who attempts to held extraterrestrials invade Earth after witnessing the death of her father during China’s Cultural Revolution.
Praised for its originality, Three-Body Problem became an international bestseller and has been translated into dozens of languages.
The trilogy also made history as the first Asian novel to win a Hugo Award for Best Novel.
Yoozoo Group and its subsidiary Three-Body Universe had previously acquired the rights to the books’ adaptions in 2015 – but the big-budget English-language version was later acquired by Netflix.
It was announced in September that Netflix had called on David Benioff and D.B. Weiss – Game of Thrones’ creators – to take on the job.
