Daily Times

Netflix has ordered its first African original series, a move its star says is “going to change the game for every artist on this continent.” According to Variety, Queen Sono will premiere globally in 2019, a drama about a secret agent fighting crime while dealing with crises in her personal life.

It will star Pearl Thusi (The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, Quantico), who said in a video tweet that she “cannot wait for…every woman on this continent, and actually on this planet, to meet Queen Sono. [The show/deal is] going to change the game for every artist on this continent,” she added.

Netflix’s vice president of international originals, Erik Barmack, told South Africa’s IOL that: “taking talent like this and telling stories to the rest of the world puts Pearl in the same category as other strong female characters like Claire Underwood in House of Cards and Jessica Jones.”

He said that more original content from Africa will likely be on the way.

“Over time our roots will get deeper in Africa and South Africa, and we’re moving pretty quickly to that now, and plan to invest more in local content,” Barmack continued.

Kelly Luegenbiehl, who works on European and African Netflix originals, added: “Netflix also wants to be a place where local content creators can tell their stories to a global audience. So our goal is really to help facilitate that for creators [and] to give them an opportunity they wouldn’t have otherwise had.”

Published in Daily Times, December 12^th 2018.