Olu Odebunmi and Tolu Awosika’s ‘Shaka: King of the Zulu Nation’ to air on Showtime

Showtime has picked up the hour-long drama created and written by Olu Odebunmi and Tolu Awosika. A series centered around a young man’s journey from stigmatized childhood to warrior king, the project is produced by CBS Studios and Propagate and will be directed by ”Training Day” director Antoine Fuqua.

“Shaka: King of the Zulu Nation” is a tribal war drama that tells the story of the Zulu Empire chief Shaka and his unlikely rise to power and is the origin story of an African warrior hero.

“This project offers a gateway to our past that is so critical to our global history and yet so often marginalized,” said Fuqua. “We hope to bring this saga to life, all the tears, sweat and blood, all the joy and sorrow, all the intimacy, intensity, and humanity. In short, we’re going to rock the world with this one.”

Fuqua has extensive credits as a director and has helmed several projects that include “The Equalizer” franchise, “The Magnificent Seven,” “Shooter,” “Olympus Has Fallen” and “Tears of the Sun,” which tells a fictionalized story of a Navy Seals unit sent to a Nigerian civil war zone to airlift four U.S. nationals to safety.

First-generation Yoruba immigrants who lived in Nigeria during their formative years, Odebunmi and Awosika met while in school in Fullerton, California in 1995.

By Samantha Ofole-Prince