‘Star Wars’ Actor John Boyega Sets Netflix Deal

“Star Wars” actor John Boyega is partnering with Netflix via his UpperRoom Productions shingle to develop non-English language movies centered on West and East Africa.

The corporate mentioned on Tuesday that the indie manufacturing home based by the British-Nigerian thesp “will develop movie tasks based mostly on tales, forged, characters, crew, literary properties, mythology, screenplays and/or different parts in or round African nations.”

The announcement is the most recent signal that the streaming large is upping its stake in unique African content material. Two weeks in the past, chief content material officer Ted Sarandos and different high-level executives arrived in Lagos to announce particulars of their first Nigerian sequence earlier than touring to Johannesburg to launch the streamer’s first African unique, “Queen Sono,” a six-part drama, which dropped worldwide on Feb. 28.

Two different African originals, the South African teen drama “Blood & Water” and the animated sequence “Mama Ok’s Crew 4,” will premiere later this yr.

“Africa has a wealthy historical past in storytelling, and for Netflix, this partnership with John and UpperRoom presents a possibility to additional our funding within the continent whereas bringing distinctive African tales to our members each in Africa and all over the world,” mentioned David Kosse, VP of worldwide movie at Netflix.

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Boyega, who lately reprised his position as stormtrooper Finn in “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” co-founded UpperRoom in 2016 to facilitate his first producing credit score for “Pacific Rim: Rebellion,” the Common-Legendary sci-fi tentpole which he co-produced and starred in. Since then, the corporate has been creating a slate of tasks throughout movie and TV, together with unscripted content material, with the day-to-day operations overseen by Yara Shaikh, VP of productions.

Final yr, Boyega additionally boarded the South African crime thriller “God Is Good” as government producer and is overseeing the film’s soundtrack via his UpperRoom Data label.

“I’m thrilled to associate with Netflix to develop a slate of non-English language function movies targeted on African tales, and my workforce and I are excited to develop unique materials,” mentioned Boyega. “We’re proud to develop this arm of our enterprise with an organization that shares our imaginative and prescient.”