by Thinus Ferreira
Production has shut down yet again and filming abruptly stopped on Paramount Africa's embattled Queendom telenovela produced by Clive Morris Productions (CMP) for BET Africa (DStv 129) after the show's crew and cast decided to stop working a second time, after they were once again not paid as promised.
There's been no public statement to the industry or MultiChoice's DStv subscribers from Clive Morris Productions or from Monde Twala, Paramount Africa senior vice president and general manager and BET International lead, about the latest Queendom production shutdown that started two weeks ago already.
Paramount Africa has remained silent in previous months over the reasons behind why the scandal-plagued show's crew and cast have not been paid and what exactly Paramount Africa and the production company have been doing about it.
The cast and crew on Queendom again stopped working on 2 October after they were again not paid by Clive Morris Productions at the end of September despite promises of payment.
The past two weeks' worth in lost episode production due to filming downtime and work stoppage over non-payment will likely once again force Queendom off the air soon and Paramount Africa to once again schedule repeats when it again runs out of completed episodes to air.
New episodes of Queendom just started again on BET on 23 September, two months after Paramount Africa was forced to switch to padded filler with rebroadcasts of episodes already completed since 22 July, after Clive Morris Productions ran out of money to film and even to pay cast and crew.
Paramount Africa didn't respond to earlier media queries about the rebroadcasts or how it would work, or what was going on.
Paramount Africa was forced to switch to repeats of Queendom just four months after its debut on BET Africa due to financial problems and not being able to finance and pay for production.
There been no explanation, and no response to earlier media queries made to Paramount Africa, on where Clive Morris Productions found the money to restart the embattled production which already saw cast and crew forced to sell possessions to buy food, while a crew member couldn't pay for a parent's funeral after a funeral policy lapsed due to non-payment.
On 25 September, just days before the Queendom crew and cast were supposed to be paid at the end of the month, Paramount Africa held what it called a "Paramount Summer Showcase" event for some Johannesburg media at Rockets in Bryanston and where some Queendom actors appeared and talked up the returning, yet floundering show's prospects.
About the latest Queendom work-stoppage which has been going for two weeks, a crew member told City Press newspaper "We are not going to work, we are still not paid".
According to the person, Clive Morris Productions told cast and crew they would be paid by Friday.
The person told City Press "If we get paid, we will resume work on Monday if the actors are available. This is the second week of not going to work. It's not looking good. People are not happy in the group because they said funds would be released but there is still nothing."
According to insiders they were duped by Clive Morris Productions and lured back to work with promises of getting paid again - which then didn't happen.
Meanwhile, several crew and cast didn't return last month when filming restarted after the show shutdown and have since been lost to the show after they opted to take other work.
Clive Morris sent a message to the Queendom crew and cast about not being paid yet again, noting "I acknowledge this is difficult to understand. The funder is still there but requires various milestones to be met to release funds. A milestone was not met but we are attempting to get that closed so that funds can be released".
Unfulfilled payment promises
As I've reported earlier, Queendom started out as a co-production, with BET responsible for half of the investment, which was fulfilled by BET Africa and Clive Morris Productions responsible for the other 50%.
According to CMP, a backer pulled out that would have paid its 50% towards the production costs, but it's unclear why pre-production and filming started before the funding was fully paid over.
Insiders told TVwithThinus earlier that MultiChoice, Paramount Africa and Clive Morris Productions (CMP) are all equal parts responsible for the financial scandal of letting a show go into production without having secured the total money upfront to make it.
According to insiders Queendom had to shut down since MultiChoice placed massive pressure on Paramount Africa to maintain a contractual local content quota for BET Africa whereby Paramount must produce and air a number of local hours per year on the channel.
Paramount Africa, under pressure to adhere to its local content contract with MultiChoice or face stiff penalities, went ahead to programme Queendom on BET, with CMP which started filming even though the show's complete budget wasn't covered by production money in the bank.
Further complicating matters: Clive Morris Productions wanted to retain a stake in the show in order to benefit over the long run from back-end licensing - which is why the production company was and is responsible for putting up the financing of its "part" in the show's production equity.
When the available Queendom money ran out, angry and upset crew and cast continued working unpaid for a while based on payment promises, but eventually decided to down tools collectively.
