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South Africa’s International Emmy-nominated production house Both Worlds and Paris-based Paradoxal have entered into an exclusive rights agreement with bestselling South African author Deon Meyer to develop two of his most celebrated properties as premium TV series, the companies announced just before Series Mania.
Meyer is attached as executive producer on both projects.
“Umzingeli” (“The Hunter”) is an ambitious, contemporary, multi-territorial spy thriller centered on Thobela “Tiny” Mpayipheli, a KGB- and Stasi-trained assassin whose character spans four of Meyer’s novels. Now living under a false identity in Bordeaux, he’s put his past behind him — or so he believes.
Moving across Bordeaux, Bilbao, the Benelux, Berlin and southern Africa, the series is designed as a returnable, character-driven action-thriller of international scope. Noah Stollman (“Fauda,” “Our Boys”) is attached as lead writer and showrunner, collaborating with South African novelist and journalist Fred Khumalo.
“Dead at Daybreak,” meanwhile, is an adaptation of Meyer’s breakthrough novel and winner of the French Grand Prix de Littérature Policère. A noir series set in Cape Town in 1996, at the cross-section of the old South Africa and the new, it centers on Zatopek van Heerden, a former cop turned private investigator — a man trying to rebuild himself in a country doing the same.
Tertius Kapp (“Donkerbos”) is attached as head writer and Jaco Bouwer (“Spinners”) as director, bringing together two of South Africa’s hottest talents.
Widely regarded as South Africa’s king of crime fiction, Meyer’s work has been translated into 28 languages across more than 40 countries. The Netflix adaptation of his hit spy thriller “Heart of the Hunter” made history as the first African film to reach number one on the streamer’s global top 10 for English-language films.
Describing the “special” partnership that will bring two of his beloved characters to the screen, Meyer said he was “proud and delighted to be part of this exceptional project.”
“Thobela and Zatopek are two characters I loved to create and develop,” he said. “Both played a huge role in establishing me internationally and deserve a special team of creative people to take them on into the next chapters of their journey.”
Stollman, best known for the hit series “Fauda” and “Our Boys,” said he was “proud to be involved in such a relevant and ambitious TV adaptation,” adding that “The Hunter” carries with it “a message for our day and age.”
“Though I come from a very different part of the world, I was immediately drawn to Deon Meyer’s universe, where courageous men and women fought for equality and justice, then had to adapt and evolve into a post-truth world filled with moral grey zones and impossible choices,” Stollman said. “Tiny’s character embodies this tension — he’s a man of moral clarity shaped by a cause that no longer exists, and though he’s worn down and disillusioned, he’ll never walk away from the fight.”
The two series mark the latest collaborations between Both Worlds and Paradoxal, which have worked as co-development and co-financing partners since 2019, teaming up on Acorn TV’s cozy-crime series “Recipes for Love and Murder” and Prime Video’s “The Morning After,” which recently scooped four prizes — including best TV comedy — at the South African Film and Television Awards.
Executive producer Thierry Cassuto, of Cape Town-based Both Worlds, noted that Meyer’s work “sits at the intersection of the deeply local and the genuinely universal,” positioning it “exactly where the best television lives.”
“With ‘Umzingeli’ (The Hunter), we have a character and a world that can hold its own alongside anything being made in Europe or the U.S. right now,” said Cassuto. “‘Dead at Daybreak’ is a different proposition — intimate, period, rooted in Cape Town — but equally driven by a protagonist you can’t look away from. With Noah and Fred on one, Tertius and Jaco on the other, the creative foundation couldn’t be stronger.”
Executive producer Rémy Jacquelin of Paradoxal added: “From a French and European perspective, the timing couldn’t be better. The appetite for premium series with a strong authorial voice and international scope is real and growing. Two projects anchored in one of the world’s most distinctive literary voices, with a South Africa–France co-production structure at their core — that’s a proposition that travels. We’re proud to be bringing both to Series Mania.”
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