From Black Sails' to Avengers,' productions look to capture South African scenery, exchange rates and rebates. Moored off this coastal city's main highway, a fleet of pirate ships signals that a television- and film-industry boom is happening here. By Alexandra Wexler.
The hulking 18th-century-style vessels, visible to drivers heading north to South Africa's vineyards, are used on the set of Starz's hit television series Black Sails. The pirate-themed show, which occupies all four of Cape Town Film Studios' sound stages and workshops, is one of a rising tide of top-tier film and TV productions now shooting in South Africa, including Showtime's Homeland and Avengers: Age of Ultron, a recent box-office smash.
The productions are being lured by a combination of jaw-dropping scenery, favorable exchange rates and government rebates. Film-industry groups say the result is a 30% expansion in productions in each of the past three years, a bright spot for South Africa's otherwise listless economy.
This year, the Cape Film Commission says it's receiving enquiries at an unprecedented rate from production companies as far afield as India and Norway. Studios here have snared a broad spectrum of productions ranging from Bollywood and period pieces to superhero films, while other Sub-Saharan nations like Kenya and Nigeria mostly host local film industries and provide backdrops for productions set in Africa.
One result: the fully booked Cape Town Film Studios are expanding, unable to keep up with surging demand.
It's better to be saying no' to people, says the studios' chief executive, Nico Dekker, from his office on the sprawling 500-acre lot, where a fifth double sound stage and a new workshop have been approved for construction. Mr. Dekker says there is also plenty of space to expand the studio's convertible back lots, which include a pirate village, a beach tank that can create high and low tides, and a recreation of Soweto, a Johannesburg township, which was built for 2013's Oscar-nominated film, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, starring Idris Elba.
The back lots, a significant investment for the studios, are starting to pay dividends, attracting other productions that can adapt them based on their own needs. The recreation of Soweto was recently transformed into Nairobi for a film that also converted the Robben Island back lot-the scene of most of Nelson Mandela's nearly three-decade imprisonment-into a hospital.
With surging demand from productions like Black Sails, the Cape Film Commission is crafting inventive solutions to accommodate new requests, including converting neglected warehouses and erecting open-air sets. South Africa seems to rapidly be becoming the favorite of the month, says Chris Symes, executive producer of Black Sails.
But despite recent gains, South Africa's film industry still has a long way to go to catch up with industry majors. Film contributed 3.5 billion rand ($288 million) to the country's gross domestic product in 2012, according to South Africa's National Film and Video Foundation, a figure that the Cape Film Commission claims is not high enough. New Zealand's film industry contributed $2.8 billion to GDP in 2011, according to a 2012 study by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.
Recent legislation making it more onerous for foreigners to work in South Africa is one growth hurdle. We've lost some jobs because we couldn't get people visas, says Helene Turvey, a publicist who has worked on Black Sails and Homeland.
But South African industry executives are bullish and believe they have the right raw materials for growth. They cite Cape Town's adaptable mountain-and-sea vistas, which have stood in for Caribbean beaches on Black Sails and Pakistan's mountains on Homeland.
The scenery is bolstered by the quality of the light, which resembles the sunshine that fueled California's golden years of filmmaking before Los Angeles was shrouded in a hazy smog of pollution.
A government cash rebate for international filmmakers of between 20% and 25% has also put South Africa on a competitive footing with other major filming locations. Sugar-coating those benefits is a change in the exchange rate that offers filmmakers a lot more for their dollar: South Africa's rand currency has dropped to a 13-year low against the greenback this year.
When the dollar gets stronger, you're just able to do more, in terms of your sets and your construction and your wardrobe, says Carmi Zlotnik, managing director at Starz, who says that South Africa now ranks as the top country in which he operates.
Denis Lille, chief executive of the Cape Film Commission, puts it another way: It just doesn't cost as much as other destinations like Australia or Europe, he says. It's like South African wine.
Studio executives also praise the raft of affordable English-speaking talent. Of 700 crew members on Black Sails' third-season payroll, all but 30 were South African and just 10 of 200 speaking parts went to foreigners, Mr. Symes says.
To the north, Johannesburg has also become a draw as a setting for scenes of dystopian mayhem. In Avengers: Age of Ultron, a Marvel film released internationally in late April and in the U.S. May 1, the City of Gold hosts a 10-minute scene with The Hulk and Iron Man.
More than 300 local crew members and 600 extras were involved in that 10-day shoot, and some of them were brought on to travel to other filming locations with the movie.
At a time when xenophobic attacks on foreigners are making some tourists balk, the positive publicity is a windfall for South Africa.
If you think about hundreds of millions of people seeing this movie, it really is priceless in terms of marketing value, says Laura Vercueil, communications manage
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
From Black Sails' to Avengers,' productions look to capture South African scenery, exchange rates and rebates. Moored off this coastal city's main highway, a fleet of pirate ships signals that a television- and film-industry boom is happening here. By Alexandra Wexler.
