Game Of Thrones Creators New Netflix Chinese Sci-Fi Adaptation Project Derailed After Suspected Murder Plot

Earlier this year came the announcement from Netflix that not only had they secured the rights to adapt the the award-winning Chinese book series The Three-Body Problem into a TV series but that Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss would executive produce it. Among the other executive producers confirmed by the streamer at the time included Bernadette Caulfield and Lin Qi of Yoozoo Group. The later of these EPs has found himself in an unbelievable situation right out of Benioff and Weiss’ Emmy winning HBO Series that has derailed work on the show for the time being.

According to The Hollywood Reporter Lin Qi was hospitalized on December 16 after an alleged poisoning attempt. Police in Shanghai apprehended a suspect which Chinese media outlets identified as Xu Yao, a senior executive at Yoozoo. No further details about the incident have been revealed just yet but the Shanghai Public Security Bureau confirmed they’d arrested Xu and that an investigation was ongoing. Chinese media company Caixin reported earlier today however that Lin Qi has passed away following the incident.

It’s unclear how much this effects the Netflix adaptation of The Three-Body Problem but with Lin Qi previously attached as an EP and his company the original rights holders to the books it seems like it could cause a delay in development.

Based on the award-winning Chinese book series by Liu Cixin, the series has Alexander Woo (The Terror, True Blood) tapped as writer and showrunner TV adaptation. Netflix‘s deal with Three-Body Universe and Yoozoo Group will see the English-language adaptation cover all three books in Cixin’s “Remembrance of Earth’s Past” series: The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death’s End. The books chronicle humanity’s first encounter with an alien civilization, in a story that spans from “the 1960s to the far end of the universe and time itself.” Here’s a quick summary of the plot:

“The series portrays an alternate history where, in the first book, the Earth is awaiting an invasion from the closest star system, which in this universe consists of three solar-type stars orbiting each other in an unstable three-body problem, with a single Earth-like planet unhappily being passed among them and suffering extremes of heat and cold, as well as the repeated destruction of its intelligent civilizations.

In August of 2019, after the conclusion of Game of Thrones, Benioff and Weiss departed the WarnerMedia company for a major new deal at Netflix. Under the terms of this deal they would be writing, producing, and directing new films and TV shows for the streamer, The Thee-Body Problem adaptation was among their first TV series to be put in development at Netflix.

(Cover photo by FilmMagic/FilmMagic for HBO)