Streaming giant and ‘Game of Thrones’ creators David Benioff and DB Weiss have partnered with the Yoozoo Group on a high-level plan to adapt the best-selling Chinese science fiction books. But Yoozoo president Lin Qi is now hospitalized after alleged poisoning and another company executive is in police custody as the main suspect.
Netflix’s high-level plan to have War of Thrones creators David Benioff and DB Weiss adapt the best-selling Chinese science fiction books The three body problem was hit by an outrageous assassination attempt plan in Shanghai.
Netflix acquired the rights to produce the big-budget English adaptation of hit books by Chinese companies Yoozoo Group and The Three-Body Universe, which had previously acquired property rights.
Yoozoo Group President Lin Qi, who is credited as a producer on the Netflix series alongside Benioff, Weiss and others, was hospitalized after being poisoned on December 16, according to a statement released on Wednesday by police from Shanghai. Local authorities have arrested a suspect, surnamed Xu, who they believe is responsible for the poisoning.
Suspect Xu, 39, has been identified by Chinese media as Xu Yao, a senior executive in the Yoozoo film and television division (only his last name and age have been released by the police). Local reports claimed that an earlier dispute between executives at the Chinese entertainment company preceded the surreptitious attack on Lin.
Liu’s The three body problem trilogy is a global publishing phenomenon. The first book in the series won the highest honor of science fiction, the Hugo Award, in 2015 – the first time for an Asian writer. Since then, the series has become an international best seller, translated into dozens of languages and praised by critics for its vast scope and originality.
Netflix was planning the property as a series of major events, with Benioff and Weiss in charge, and Alexander Woo (The Terror: Infamy) installed as a showrunner. The project also features heavyweights like Rian Johnson, and Rosamund Pike and Brad Pitt’s Plan B among their executive producers.
On Wednesday night in China, the Shanghai Public Security Bureau posted the following statement on its official Weibo social media account:
“At 5 pm on December 17, 2020, the police received a call from a hospital about a patient with the surname Lin. During the patient’s treatment, the hospital said it determined that the patient had been poisoned. After the call, the police started an investigation. According to on-the-spot investigations and other interviews, police found that a suspect with the surname Xu, who is co-worker with victim Lin, was the most likely perpetrator. Suspect Xu was arrested and investigations continue. “
The three body problemThe path from page to screen has been tricky to say the least. In December 2015, Yoozoo announced that he had acquired the rights and would be collaborating with the acclaimed author, Liu, to produce a Chinese film adaptation and a video game version. The film was scheduled to be released in July 2016, but soon got bogged down in reports of problems on the set, including changes in senior staff and eventually the dismissal of the entire post-production and VHX team. The release date was moved to 2017 – and later discarded again, with Yoozoo having no lack of online shadow from China’s large sci-fi fan community. When the Netflix series adaptation plan was revealed in September, what many in the Chinese industry had long suspected seemed confirmed: that Yoozoo had given up on adapting the hot property itself and decided to be a rights broker (the company also sold Three-Body Problem rights to the Shanghai-based streaming platform Bilibili and the local animation company YHTK Entertainment for a series of animation in Chinese).
Despite the huge influence of the industry that came with War of Thrones, Benioff and Weiss have also traveled a somewhat rocky path in recent times. The duo Got follow-up should be Confederate, a big budget series from HBO set in a parallel universe where the South won the American Civil War and slavery continues. But the program faced immediate reaction from black activists and thought leaders and ended up being abandoned.
Benioff and Weiss signed an agreement with Disney’s Lucasfilm to develop a trio of originals Star Wars movies, but later turned away from those plans, citing a busy schedule because of a general nine-digit deal they signed on Netflix. The three body problem it is to be his first major project under the last partnership.
Their Netflix Three-Body Problem The series plan was hit by political controversy shortly after it was announced in September. Netflix’s decision to embark on the project was contested by a group of Republican senators who claimed the company was “normalizing” human rights abuses in China by working with Liu, the celebrated author of the original books.
In a letter sent to Netflix’s content director and co-CEO Ted Sarandos, lawmakers cited a long interview that Liu gave to The New Yorker in 2019, in which he answered a question about the mass internment of Uighur Muslims in the country’s Xinjiang province, saying: “Do you prefer that they are hacking bodies at train stations and schools in terrorist attacks? the government is helping your economy and trying to lift them out of poverty. “The letter from the senators included a string of questions asking Netflix to justify its decision to proceed with the project in partnership with Liu, saying he is” an individual who parrot[s] dangerous propaganda by the CCP “in the face of atrocities.
Netflix responded to the senators a day later, noting that while the author may support the Chinese government’s inhumane policy, Benioff, Weiss and Netflix do not share these views. The streamer added that he “evaluates individual projects on their merits” and described Liu’s comments as “totally unrelated to his book or this Netflix show”.