Premium TV drama production is exploding across Latin America, fuelled by jaw-dropping investment from streaming platforms and a spirited response from existing media giants in the region.
The telenovela has long held sway in Latin America as the dominant small-screen format, and its popularity among a dedicated fanbase shows little sign of abating. Now executives and content creators in the region also have their eye on premium scripted TV series that typically run eight to 10 episodes.
Speak to producers who live in or work with Latin America and they agree Netflix’s aggressive move into the region several years ago was the catalyst behind a broad, industry-wide push into premium scripted content. As subscribers responded to stories such as Spain’s crime series Money Heist (La Casa De Papel) and teen thriller Elite, demand increased and content creators across Latin America have felt empowered to tell their stories.
The US platforms have been only too happy to oblige. Amazon Studios is working all over the continent, WarnerMedia launched HBO Max in the region last summer and has pledged to make 100 shows over the next two years, while Disney’s Star+ service has put dozens of original Spanish-language episodics into development. Apple is also ramping up its activity.
This will be Netflix’s most ambitious year to date in terms of production in the region. The streamer has committed $300m to content in Mexico alone and upcoming local-language dramas in Latin America include Don’t Blame Karma!, Savage Rhythm, Maldivas, 42 Days Of Darkness and Palpito, among others.
“Every streamer has made Latin America the place where they want to grow their subs base,” says Nick Lafferty, a television agent at CAA. “Spanish-language content has travelled well if you look at Money Heist and Elite for example. You have to look at the fact there is such a Latin American influence in California. Getting Mexico right is important. It’s the big player in the region.”
Elsewhere, Telemundo, the US Spanish-language network owned by NBCUniversal, will add Tplus to Peacock in the autumn, Brazil’s Globoplay is stockpiling content, and TelevisaUnivision is preparing to launch free ad-supported and premium tiers of its Spanish-language streaming platform ViX in 19 countries including the US and around Latin America later this year. The platform is reportedly investing several billion dollars in its first wave of content.
“With the advent of streamers there’s been this voracious appetite for content in Latin America and around the world,” notes Paul Presburger, CEO of Pantaya, the Spanish-language platform in the US and Puerto Rico owned by Hemisphere Media Group. “When Netflix came in, people started approaching filmmakers and independent producers who had experience producing premium-looking longform content.”
Pantaya recently launched Mexican show Senorita 89, an eight-episode thriller set in 1989 about a Miss Mexico beauty pageant that rolls out weekly and is the platform’s biggest show to date. Juan de Dios Larrain and Pablo Larrain’s Chile-based Fabula produced with Fremantle, and Lionsgate-owned Starzplay streams the show across Latin America and Spain; Fremantle holds rights for the rest of the world.
Lionsgate Television will sell US, Latin American and Spanish rights after the Pantaya and Starzplay windows. “While telenovelas remain popular, there is also great demand for premium drama and comedy series,” notes Lionsgate’s head of international TV distribution Agapy Kapouranis. “Lionsgate is leaning into foreign-language content that can travel and resonate with audiences, especially in Latin America.”
Making an entrance
The US streamers have big shows lined up for Latin America’s leading production hubs. Amazon’s first Latin American western original series The Head Of Joaquin Murrieta (La Cabeza De Joaquin Murrieta) is in post and produced by the Mexican arm of Dynamo, the Colombian powerhouse that made its name working with Netflix on Narcos. The platform will also debut the Colombian adaptation of thriller News Of A Kidnapping (Noticia De Un Secuestro) from Los Angeles-based AGC Television, Invercine & Wood and Noticia De, Inc.
Netflix has its first Chilean series 42 Days Of Darkness (42 Dias En La Oscuridad) from Fabula coming out later this year. HBO Max is in production on Brazilian comic-book adaptation The Teenage Kiss (O Beijo Adolescente). Star+ is embedded in Argentina working on Spanish co-productions Limbo… Until It’s Over and The Roar Of The Butterflies with veteran producer Agustin Bossi of Pampa Films. Apple debuted Eugenio Derbez comedy Acapulco last autumn and has more unannounced projects in the works.
Traditionally, content from a Latin American country did not necessarily always travel well across the region, but that could be changing. Brazilian content was regarded as challenging due to the Portuguese-language element but Dom, a crime drama and Amazon’s first original Brazilian scripted series, was a big hit on the service. Argentinian content tends to work well in neighbouring Paraguay and Uruguay.
In order to work across Latin America, Pantaya’s Presburger says content must be “super-premium, with great writing”. Producers and platforms are envisioning a broader canvas, inspired by the breakout success of Netflix’s South Korean phenomenon Squid Game.
“A universal story always travels well,” says Lourdes Diaz, president of AGC Television at AGC Studios. “There’s a lot more that unites us than just language.” The executive cites exponential growth in sophisticated television audiences over the last few years as streamers have showcased new content with high production values.
HBO Max is championing hyperlocal storylines with underlying universal themes that executives at the streamer hope will resonate globally. Coming up is the second season of Argentinian original Dias De Gallos, set in the world of freestyle rap battles; the aforementioned The Teenage Kiss; and also from Brazil, coming-of-age drama No Mundo Da Luna.
“A year ago, streamers said they didn’t want ‘glocal’ content — local content for a global audience. They wanted local talent and wanted stories to be local to get more local subscribers,” says Cristina Garza, SVP, television development and production, Endeavor Content. “Now it’s shifted again and there’s a need for more glocal content — content that feels premium, working with directors of international acclaim. Projects that can work in multiple territories with bigger budgets.”
The Endeavor Content pipeline includes work with Marcos Bucay, a writer on Netflix comedy series Club De Cuervos; Alejandra Marquez Abella, the Mexican talent who directed Berlinale 2022 entry Northern Skies Over Empty Space; and Alejandro Fernandez Almendras, the Chilean director of Berlinale 2016 selection Much Ado About Nothing and Cannes Critics’ Week 2009 entry Huacho.
Shifting traditions
This range of nationalities illustrates another happy circumstance of the region: creative talent, including from film, will travel to work on the best projects. “There’s a huge tradition of television in Mexico and a lot of film professionals have moved to start working in premium content on the platform,” says Juliana Florez, Dynamo’s Mexico country manager and executive producer.
The company started in film in Colombia and moved into production services for US companies such as Netflix on Narcos. That changed everything. “Now Netflix has opened the market and we’re doing more TV series than film,” says Florez, who is producing the drama show Pedal To The Metal (Dale Gas) that launched on March 16 on Netflix. She notes that while Mexican media players such as Televisa and TV Azteca still produce telenovelas, streamers have become the place to play in the premium television space.
“Film is in our DNA and we like prestige TV because it’s like a 13-hour film over eight or 10 episodes. It comes from a film culture,” observes Diego Ramirez, co-CEO of Colombia’s 64-A Films, whose credits include Dog Eat Dog and All Your Dead Ones. While film still accounts for roughly 60% of his company’s activity, there has been a marked shift towards the small screen.
Ramirez spotted an opportunity during the Covid-19 lockdown when film production was on hold. He set up a writers’ room with five professional scribes and created eight premium show pitches covering a range of genres. “We took them to MIP Cancun last year and we’re in talks with all the major companies operating in the region,” he says.
Demand in Argentina
Pampa Films’ Bossi has eight TV series and three feature films scheduled for 2022 and is similarly upbeat about Argentina. “The TV industry in Argentina is going through a fantastic time. I dare say we’re living through the highest peak of labour demand in our history.” The influence of European cinema in Argentina has created a wealth of talent, he adds. “Argentina has an extraordinary opportunity to position itself as an important content production hub.”
“We have never been so busy,” agrees Pablo Cruz, the Mexican producer of Sin Nombre and Miss Bala who co-founded Canana with Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna and is a partner at US, Mexico City and Madrid-based El Estudio. “People are fighting for vans, equipment, no actor is free, everybody has 20 offers on the table. In general it’s the best time and the worst time if you’re able to produce.”
El Estudio is lining up High Seas (Marea Alta), a 10-episode thriller that will debut later this year on ViX+. Cruz sees an “increasingly large appetite among streamers to find fresh content and take bigger bets”. Because of that he also sees an opportunity for producers. “We come from an IP business when we used to go to the markets and sell TV and film,” he says. “Then it changed to a fee-driven universe where we all work for a streamer. I think we all have to get more financially savvy and start licensing again to the streamers.”
The positive effects of increased streaming activity have not gone unnoticed by those in Latin America. “The SVoD platforms have come into the business and they have guaranteed jobs for hundreds and hundreds of families,” says producer Sandro Halphen, who heads production at Mexico’s Corazon Films. “They’ve revolutionised the need for talent in the region and thanks to them we’ve become a profession that’s sustainable.”
Halphen has worked on Mi Tio, a Spanish-language remake of BBC Three hit Uncle that launched on March 25 in Mexico on Amazon Prime Video and in the US and Puerto Rico on Pantaya, with whom Corazon has a multi-year production partnership. Corazon’s other show happens to be breakout Prime Video drama The Game Of Keys (El Juego De Las Llaves).
Production in Brazil is booming too and the streamers are hungry for material. Major producer Conspiracao’s crime series Dom is on its second season on Prime Video. “Even though in Brazil we speak Portuguese and the majority of Latin America speaks Spanish, Brazilian content is more competitive every day, aligned with global productions,” notes head of development Clarisse Goulart. Conspiracao’s pipeline includes a final season of hugely popular medical thriller Under Pressure and Fim, adapted from Fernanda Torres’ novel The End, both on Globoplay.
Dynamo’s upcoming production Nautilus, a Colombia-Spain narco submarine thriller, is co-produced with Spain’s Mediacrest. Israel’s Ariel Vromen will direct in late summer in Madrid, Bogota and the Colombian Amazon and the series will debut on ViX+. Showrunner Clayton Trussell, who was a writer and co-executive producer on Narcos and Narcos: Mexico, says a project like Nautilus might have looked very different a decade or so ago.
“Streamers, and Netflix is the pioneer, have given the platform and the time to tell the story,” he says. “[Years ago] you would have tried to make this as a semi-independent film and maybe if it was good it might have got picked up by a distributor. [Premium television] gives us the time to tell a more accessible story where you let the characters into your home.”
The impact of the streamers on storytelling, Trussell says, cannot be underestimated. “International television has simply become television, and the same goes for film.”
In the pipeline upcoming Latin American series
42 Days Of Darkness 42 Dias En La Oscuridad (Chile)
Juan de Dios Larrain and Pablo Larrain’s Fabula produces the first Chilean show for Netflix, a crime thriller from directors Gaspar Antillo and Claudia Huaiquimilla about a woman racing to find her missing sister. Launch planned for late 2022.
Corruption Game (Brazil)
Birdman co-writer Armando Bo returns as showrunner for the second season of El Presidente, the drama about politics in global football. Gaumont’s Latin American team, Chile’s Fabula and Argentina’s Kapow are producing eight hour-long episodes for Prime Video. The series shot in Uruguay in 2021 and is in post-production in Brazil. Date TBA.
The End Of Love El Fin Del Amor (Argentina)
Major Argentinian producer K&S Films and MGM Television co-produce for Prime Video the story of a young woman from a strict Orthodox Jewish background in Buenos Aires who rebels and finds romance. Lali Esposito stars and Leticia Dolera (Perfect Life) directs the first block of episodes based on Tamara Tenenbaum’s book. In post.
High Seas Marea Alta (Mexico)
El Estudio’s Pablo Cruz is producing the 10-episode series about the murder of a feminist cyberactivist on Mexico’s Pacific coast. Univision funded the show directed by Roger Gual. To debut on ViX+ this year.
Limbo… Until It’s Over (Argentina-Spain)
Argentina’s Pampa Films and Spain’s Gloriamundi Producciones co-produce the second season of one of Disney’s first Star+ Originals in Latin America. The first season debuted in Canneseries last year from a story developed by Official Competition writer/directors Mariano Cohn and Gaston Duprat about a rich girl in Buenos Aires who must change her life after her father’s death. Will debut on Star+ in 2022.
Nautilus (Colombia-Spain)
Israel’s Ariel Vromen (The Iceman) directs this six-episode series about a Europol agent on board a drug smuggling submarine that makes a transatlantic voyage. Dynamo produced with Spain’s Mediacrest as partner and ViX+ and Dynamo co-funded. Will shoot in late summer in Madrid, Bogota and the Colombian Amazon.
News Of A Kidnapping (Colombia)
AGC Television, Invercine & Wood and Noticia De, Inc co-produce for Prime Video this Gabriel Garcia Marquez non-fiction adaptation about the abduction of prominent Colombian figures by the Medellin cartel in the early 1990s. Director Andres Wood shot the show in Bogota in 2021. Date TBA.
Pedal To The Metal Dale Gas (Mexico)
Chile’s Alejandro Fernandez Almendras directed the pilot of a 10-episode show about friends who flee to Mexico City after a fatal car race. Dynamo and ViacomCBS produced for Netflix, which debuted the show on March 16 in the US, Latin America, Canada and Spain.
Senorita 89 (Mexico)
Fabula and Fremantle co-produced the dramatic thriller about women groomed to compete in the Miss Mexico pageant in 1989 who vie to make it out alive. Lucia Puenzo is the showrunner and the first two of eight episodes debuted on February 27 on Pantaya in the US and Puerto Rico and Starzplay in Latin America and Spain.
The Teenage Kiss O Beijo Adolescente (Brazil)
Currently in production for HBO Max and produced by Gullane, the story centres on a boy who gains special powers after his first kiss and joins a group of gifted teens out to stop a killer. The eight 30-minute episodes are based on a comic book by Rafael Coutinho. Mariana Youssef, Andre Ristum, Denis Cisma and Marcelo Mesquita direct. Date TBA.
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