Following a clutch of rave reviews for his action film iNumber Number at the Toronto International Film Festival, South African director, Donovan Marsh has made history with the first-ever South African film to be picked up for a Hollywood remake in bidding war that was awarded to Universal Pictures.
With offers pouring in for Marsh, it is Zoo City, the motion picture adaptation of author Lauren Beukes' award-winning Sci-Fi/Fantasy novel, that the filmmaker has chosen to helm next. Marsh who is also writing the screenplay will be working alongside Beukes, who garnered the 2011 Arthur C. Clarke award, British Science Fiction's most prestigious award. Beukes' book attracted universal attention, and has been touted as the literary version of District 9 , and having her latest novel, The Shining Girls, optioned by Leonardo diCaprio - makes her one of the hottest writing talents around.
Marsh's motion picture credits (as writer and director) include Spud, (an adaptation of John van der Ruit's bestselling novels) starring John Cleese, and which out grossed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, opening on the same weekend on the South African circuit. Marsh has already forged a reputation back home as one of a filmmaker to watch.
Producer, Helena Spring, is thrilled with the powerful team she has attached to the project. Spring, who produced Marsh's first film, Dollars and White Pipes, says: I consider myself lucky to have secured Donovan just as he is maturing into his most exciting work. With development nearing completion Spring says she is delighted by The significant interest in the project by key Hollywood distributors which is undoubtedly due to the phenomenal reception of iNumber Number from critics at T.I.F.F. This has elevated Donovan's profile to center stage in the global film community - validated by Hollywood's rapid interest in his work - and we hope that this heat will fast-forward the process of financing and packaging the project.
Marsh enthused about this attachment to the project and working with Lauren Beukes, says: I am extremely excited to be part of the team realizing this exciting and original novel. Zoo City is smart, cool and sassy with highly unusual and colourful characters in a world unlike anything you have ever seen before. I am relishing the creative challenge of bringing that to the big screen.
At TIFF, Marshall's work was hailed as essential viewing', with critical comments including:
. this is art house, grindhouse, Tarantino, and Scorsese set in a world rarely seen in Western cinema . director Donovan Marsh is innovating the pants off his big-budget Hollywood counterparts. (Copernicus, Ain't It Cool).
.. it looks and feels like a big budget blockbuster. It's an incredibly tense, exceptionally shot, and perfectly acted heist film, and goes above and beyond anything Hollywood has been offering. (William Brownridge, Toronto Film Scene)
My immediate reaction was to call this the South African Reservoir Dogs and I dont make the comparison lightly. A bristling action movie with stunning performances. (Jason Gorber, Twitch Film)
It brings Reservoir Dogs To South Africa . a calling card for the world to take notice. (Kurt Halfyard, Twitch Film)
.beautiful cinematography, and incredible tension .one of the best action films around. An independent, low budget film from South Africa that makes Hollywood blockbusters look slow and boring. (The Film Reel)
.. a compelling mix of genres that does not fail to entertain .. certainly worthy of wide distribution in North America. (Karen Makedon, T-Mak World)
In a vigorous bidding war among international producers, Helena Spring was awarded the motion picture adaptation rights of Beukes critical and commercial success. Recognised as one of South Africa's accomplished producers, Spring, who has a string of international productions to her name, and worked with the major filmmakers including Academy Award winning Tom Hooper (The King's Speech), and Paul Greengrass (Jason Bourne franchise) is up to the task. I had the best feeling from Helena who was committed to making this picture in South Africa and doing it right. It came down to a joint decision between me, my agent, my publisher Angry Robot, who hold the film rights, and their agent as to who was best positioned to make this happen in the best possible way. says Beukes.
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...
Following a clutch of rave reviews for his action film iNumber Number at the Toronto International Film Festival, South African director, Donovan Marsh has made history with the first-ever South African film to be picked up for a Hollywood remake in bidding war that was awarded to Universal Pictures. 
