Africa’s first Netflix Series, Queen Sono, gets renewed

Although her fighting was lackluster in several scenes, and her spying spree were not intense, Queen Sono is still considered one of the best ideas for a TV Series graced with action and thrill to ever have come out of Africa.

The series takes the viewer on a journey of Queen Sono played by  Pearl Thusi who spies in Nations across Africa to follow leads that would enable the organization she works for, to take down a rising terror group, Watu Wema. Queen Sono also has to figure out the circumstances that led to the killing of her mother then revenge the killing.

Queen Sono seemed to have been a Netflix’s trial on how African produced movies and series can perform on its platform, and given that they have okayed the series to be produced for a second season, it seems the producers behind Queen Sono did an excellent job.

Dorothy Ghettuba, who leads African originals at Netflix, said: “The first season of Queen Sono marked the beginning of our journey to introduce the world to exciting stories that are made in Africa. It was an unprecedented representation of a strong female black lead in African television.

In the recent times, Netflix has been on a shopping spree in Africa to seek producers who can produce compelling content that uniquely tell African stories. As Business Live recently reported, “Queen Sono will be followed by a Zambian animation series, a Cape Town-set mystery-thriller and an as-yet-untitled Nigerian production. They have all been commissioned by Dorothy Ghettuba, a Kenyan producer hired by Netflix last year to seek out content from the continent of more than 1-billion people”.

“We are diving all in when it comes to Africa — we are not just dipping our toes,” Ghettuba said in an interview in Johannesburg ahead of a glitzy premiere to mark the launch of Queen Sono a week ago. “Africans like to see themselves on screen, and Africa has a big population that wants to see their stories represented.”

Even as Netflix deeps its feet in the African market, it still has to contend with the fact that Internet penetration is still a big headache for majority of Africans, and even those who have access to the Internet still have to break an arm and a leg to enjoy goodies such as video streaming. And that’s before they can decide to pay for the monthly subscription fees.