EXCLUSIVE: Showmax‘s buzzy South African crime drama Koek is heading for a second season.
The series, whose title translates as Cake, stars Cindy Swanepoel as a housewife who finds evidence her husband is cheating with an erotic dancer named Candi Floss, her investigation takes her to a world poles apart from the suburban Cape Town utopia she knows.
Season 1 has been among the ten-most streamed Afrikaans-language series on Showmax since it launched in February in partnership with Comcast subsidiaries NBCUniversal and Sky. It is the most nominated drama at this coming week’s Silwerskerm Film and TV Award. Swanepoel is up for Best Actress, Stian Bam and Jacques Messenger for Best Actor, Sandra Prinsloo and Llandi Beeslaar for Supporting Actress and Dawid Minaar for Supporting Actor. The Season 2 announcement is being made at the Silwerskerm Festival.
Swanepoel stars as Christelle Smit opposite screen legend Prinsloo (The Gods Must Be Crazy), who plays a brandy-drinking, cigar-smoking, leopard-print loving, kidney-stealing mob boss and strip club owner, who demands Christelle repays her debts.
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The show is written by showrunner Christiaan Olwagen (Kanarie, Recipes for Love & Murder) and directed and filmed by Johannes Pieter Nel. Wolflight Films is the production company and MultiChoice Studios is handling international sales for both seasons.
Koek Season 2 will deliver in 2025.
“Christiaan Olwagen’s concept is just crazy and I’m so thankful to Showmax that they said, ‘Yes, go for it, tell it in your language and don’t be shy, don’t hold back,” said Swanepoel. “That’s definitely what sets Koek apart.”
“It is such an honour to revisit this character and have another season,” she added. “Christelle now? She’s edgy, she’s dangerous, she’s hardcore. Don’t mess with her; she’s been through a lot. But she’s also vulnerable; what she did in Season 1 is hectic; it’s not just something one does.”
She noted there will be “a lot of comical elements meeting the serious elements” in the second run.
Showmax unveiled plans to relaunch with backing from NBCU and Sky in March last year. Under restructuring NBCU landed a 30% stake, with tech from both Comcast companies used to refresh the Showmax interface. The relaunch took place earlier this year, with more local originals investment and new deals in place with the likes of Warner Bros International, Sony and the English Premier League.
Showmax parent MultiChoice is currently in the process of selling to France’s Canal+. The deal values MultiChoice, which also operates TV channels and production-sales business, at about $3B.
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