Showmax’s first telenovela, The Wife, has broken Uthando Lodumo’s record for the most first-day views of all-time on Showmax, as well as Devilsdorp’s record for the most hours watched within four days of launch, outperforming the launch of any film or series on Showmax ever, including the likes of Game of Thrones, The Real Housewives of Durban and The River.
Inspired by Dudu Busani-Dube’s bestseller Hlomu The Wife, the 40-episode first season tells the story of a journalist (Mbalenhle Mavimbela from Skeem Saam) who falls in love with a taxi driver, Mqhele (Bonko Khoza from Neckie Youth), not realising that when you marry a man, you marry his secrets.
Showmax has commissioned three seasons of 40 episodes each, inspired by Dudu’s books Hlomu the Wife, Zandile the Resolute, and Naledi His Love respectively.
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The books follow the lives of the eight Zulu brothers, a formidable crime family, through the eyes of the wives they marry.
The Johannesburg Review of Books calls Dudu “a publishing phenomenon.” She’s become the face of self-publishing in South Africa, having topped the Exclusive Books charts, and landed four books simultaneously in the Nielsen Bookscan SA bestseller list for July 2021.
And that was before Showmax announced they were adapting the series, unleashing the most heated casting debate South Africa has ever seen.
As IOL’s Buhle Mbonambi put it, “No other South African series had garnered that much attention on who was cast in the roles before. In my years of reporting about the South African TV industry, I had never come across such heated debate. Even when Deon Meyer's Trackers book was adapted for screen by M-Net, there wasn't this much attention paid to the casting choices. But then there have been few characters as fascinating or as gripping as Hlomu and the Zulu brothers.”
The Wife topped the Twitter trends chart in South Africa by 6:30am on the morning of its 11 November 2021 launch, with fans waking up early to devour the first three episodes of the debut Showmax Original telenovela as they dropped.
The telenovela went straight to #1 on Showmax’s Top 20, ahead of Emmy winner Succession and popular reality series Temptation Island South Africa.
You can watch the trailer here:
