Lin Qi, the chief executive of the Chinese company producing the Netflix adaptation of “The Three-Body Problem,” book series, is in the hospital following a suspected poisoning, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
"At 5pm on Dec 17, 2020, the police received a call from a hospital regarding a patient surnamed Lin. During the patient's treatment, the hospital said it had determined that the patient had been poisoned. Following the call, the police began an investigation," Shanghai police said in a statement posted to Weibo on Wednesday.
"After investigation, police said that suspicions fell on a 39-year-old man surnamed Xu, one of Lin's colleagues. Xu has been detained, and an investigation is ongoing,” the statement added, according to Deadline.
Lin’s company, Yoozoo, issued a formal statement on Wednesday.
“Although the company’s management has recovered from the emergency situation last week and resumed normal operations, some friends are still uneasy and members of the public are curious” about the incident.
“The Three-Body Problem,” announced in September, faced controversy after Republican senators accused Netflix of “normalizing” China’s human rights abuses, noting that the author of the books defended the country’s internment of Uyghur Muslims in an interview with The New Yorker last year.
Netflix have distanced themselves from the author, Cixin Liu, saying his remarks in the interview are "entirely unrelated to his book or this Netflix show."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.