Featured Image Credit: Netflix / Getty Images (Kevin Winter)
Topics: Film and TV, Game of Thrones, Netflix, Breaking Bad
Michael Slavin
Topics: Film and TV, Game of Thrones, Netflix, Breaking Bad
With 3 Body Problem out on Netflix this week, all conversation is understandably focused on what we all think of the show.
There is, however, a darker chapter in the production of the new Netflix show by the Game of Thrones creators, David Benioff and DB Weiss.
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In December of 2020, whilst the show was still almost a year from beginning filming for Netflix, Lin Qi, an executive producer on the show, died in Shanghai.
It later came out that the billionaire, who founded the company (Yoozoo) that owned the rights to adapting the book, had been killed.
According to media reports in China, Qi was poisoned by one of his own executives who ran the company’s film division.
The show had a troubled path to being produced, and some believe this may have even played a role in Qi’s ultimate untimely death at just 39.
The Hollywood Reporter (THR) claim that Yoozoo had a meeting with Amazon Studios in 2018, where a deal to produce an adaptation was just hours away from completion.
Rian Johnson, who directed Knives Out and Star Wars: The Last Jedi, was attached to direct the project – and Amazon had spent eight months working on the deal.
The executive, who was in the room, spoke to THR and said a Yoozoo ‘contingent’ led by Qi ‘arrived dressed like a gangster and put his feet up.’
They said: “It was the craziest meeting of my career.
“[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.”
The executive claimed the Yoozoo crowd were incredibly heated after, stating that when he wound up dead two years later, ‘I wasn’t surprised'.
One Chinese media report also states that the executive who poisoned Qi ‘was a massive fan of Breaking Bad’ and was possibly inspired to poison him by the poison plotlines in the show.
After the news broke, Benioff emailed the story to Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, saying: “What have you done?”
According to the Chinese media report, Caixin Global, Lin was hospitalised due to “tetrodotoxin, a neurotoxin most often associated with pufferfish, a Japanese delicacy known for its potential deadliness if the toxin isn’t cleaned out before consumption.
“If ingested, it can lead to dizziness and vomiting as well as numbness of the fingers and mouth, and at this time there is no effective treatment.”
They went on to say that the billionaire, despite transfusions of 40 litres of blood, died on Christmas day, nine days after his hospitalisation.
Benioff said of the incident: ““It was certainly disconcerting.
“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.”