A billionaire Netflix producer and tycoon behind the Game of Thrones video game is dead.
Police confirm that the 39-year-old founder of Chinese company Yoozoo Group died on Christmas day after being poisoned.
Before his death, Lin was attached to an upcoming, high-profile Netflix project.
Lin Qi’s Yoozoo Group had purchased the rights to the Chinese sci-fi trilogy The Three-Body Problem in 2015.
The deceased – who has a net worth of around £960m (6.8billion yuan) – was listed as one of the show’s executive producers.
He became sick last week and was hospitalized on Dec. 16, reportedly barely able to walk and with symptoms of “acute illness.” He was immediately brought to the ICU for treatment, where he had to be resuscitated after his heart stopped, according to local reports.
By Dec. 24, Shanghai police said a man was detained for the alleged poisoning of Lin. Police referred to both men by their surnames, but media reports said the detained suspect was Lin’s colleague, Xu Yao.
The next day, Lin was dead.
Xu was a senior executive for Yoozoo’s film and television division. Alleged infighting at the company may be the motive behind the attack on Lin, according to reports. Those reports suggested that Lin may have been poisoned by a tainted cup of pu’er, a fermented tea.
When Yoozoo purchased the film rights to develop The Three Body Problem series in 2015, plans to develop the movie under its own production team were fraught with problems.
That included senior personnel changes throughout the production and difficulties on set, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Eventually, the company gave up on the endeavour and sold the rights for the film to Netflix, as well as the video game production for the trilogy to a Chinese company.
