As We Say Goodbye To Marvel Shows, Netflix Will Start Making Original African Content This Coming Year

Just in case you haven’t heard: Netflix has been giving Marvel shows that made its name in the streaming world the axe. First it was Luke Cage, then next the horrible Iron Fist was guillotined and in a recent ruthless move that shocked a lot of people, even the very popular Daredevil series was also shown the door.

For those who do not know Marvel Shows refers to shows based on Marvel comics. Due to some lazy writing these shows tend to happen in the same Universe called the Marvel World. Yes this is ridiculous and should not work but it does work.

Disney owns the rights to Marvel shows and a lot of other stuff. They sold the rights to provide these shows to Netflix who went on to make major hits such as Daredevil season one. I can only imagine when they saw the success of these shows and some of the content they had pawned off they got jealous and now they want to fragment the streaming world further by creating their own streaming platform. Kind of like the Tidal of movies and series with as much chances of success.

Finding refuge in African content

Netflix in the meantime wants to start making original African content in 2019. Like actual well funded TV shows and movies that are made in Africa, with African stories that are not stereotypes and where the people actually get to speak their own languages and not in funny weirdly accented English.

If you hadn’t noticed this by now, there is habit in Hollywood to whitewash most major productions. 15 years later I cannot still get over the fact that the Last Samurai was a white dude. When black people or Asians are shown they are relegated to side kicks at best. We all know what happens to the black guy in horror movies.

Sometimes they do not even bother to come to African countries to look for actual Africans from the actual country that’s being portrayed. They do things like hire Idris Alba to pretend to be a Nigerian in Beast of No Nation. These actors proceed to butcher local languages and again speak in horrible “African” accents.

The lie exposed

The convention has always been that Hollywood’s major market is the US where people like to see white muscular dudes, like Jason Bourne, running around with blonde women. Hollywood has religiously obliged this nonsense and apart from cheap Tyler Perry productions most of the major casts tends to be white.

The runaway successes of Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians has exposed this lie for what it is though. While it may have been true back when the old men who are on the Oscar’s committee where kids, the truth is that due to falling birth rates white people are now just the largest minority. Factor in increasing prosperity and development in other countries like China and you can see the clear hunger for movies where the cast is not blonde.

Netflix leads the way

Netflix vice president Erik Barmack revealed the streaming giant’s African ambitions for the coming year at the recently concluded Content London conference.The streaming service has already moved into the European, Asian, and Latin American production markets.

“There’s going to come a time when half of the top 10 of most-watched shows in a given year are going to come from outside of the US.In the process of looking at opportunities in Africa. It’s definitely the case that we’ll commission some series there in…2019″

In a positive sign he also said that shows and movies with multicultural casts will become the norm in the near future. This means Hollywood’s cost cutting and institutional racism is going to become a thing of the past. This is good news to African actors and viewers.