A former gaming executive has been sentenced to death in China for poisoning the founder of Chinese gaming company Yoozoo Games. This story also connects to the recently released Netflix series 3 Body Problem from the creators of Game of Thrones.
CBS News reports that Xu Yao poisoned Yoozoo founder Lin Qi in December 2020 over a business dispute. Lin’s tea was poisoned, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and he died 10 days later at the age of 39. Xu was taken into custody not long after Lin’s death.
A court said multiple other people at Yoozoo were sickened but survived after Xu poisioned drinks in the company’s office over reported disputes.
This all connects to Netflix, Game of Thrones, and 3 Body Problem because Yoozoo owns the movie rights to the sci-fi book series The Three-Body Problem, which the creators of Game of Thrones, D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, are adapting.
Xu was in charge of the business unit within Yoozoo that handled this, and Lin was named as an executive producer on 3 Body Problem for Netflix.
A Chinese media outlet said Xu was a big fan of Breaking Bad and might have gotten the idea to poison Lin from that show, which also involved a poisoning plot line. David Benioff emailed Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan about this, asking him, “What have you done?”
“It was certainly disconcerting,” Benioff told The Hollywood Reporter. “When you work in this business, you’re expecting all sorts of issues to arise. Somebody poisoning the boss is not generally one of them.”
Amazon Studios previously negotiated with Yoozoo to get the rights to The Three-Body Problem and reportedly spent eight months trying to sign a deal. THR’s sources said Lin attended a meeting in Los Angeles to discuss the rights and “dressed like a gangster.”
“It was the craziest meeting of my career,” an executive who attended the meeting told THR. “[Lin] was so obnoxious. We were one minute away from signature when their CEO suddenly said, ‘Let’s do a joint venture instead'”–which effectively blew up the deal.”
