By John Hopewell Mabel Lozano
Top Spanish pay TV/SVOD player Movistar Plus+ has unveiled three new originals, all scripted series, which drives a direct through-line back to a talent-driven strategy which has reaped spectacular recent rewards with its winning the two top prizes at March’s Series Mania, Europe’s No. 1 TV fest, as well as a top prize at May’s Cannes Film Festival.
In one announcement, Alauda Ruíz de Azua, whose “Querer” won the Series Mania main competition Grand Prix is developing a series exploring the universe of platforms like OnlyFans.
“It’s a universe which is in constant expansion, and asks questions which have not so easy answers while questioning traditional pornography and how we live online sexuality. It’s a projects which touches a high contemporary issues,” Ruíz de Azua explained at a Madrid press conference on Thursday.The Movistar Plus+ Original will be produced with Kowalski Films and Feelgood Media, both also behind “Querer.”
Jorge Pezzi, Movistar Plus+’s director of fiction and alliances, and Susana Herreras, its editorial manager of original series, also introduced Isabel Peña, Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s regular co-scribe, and Eduardo Villanueva, who co-wrote with them Sorogoyen’s hit first series “Riot Police.”
Created by Peña and Villanueva, the new series is adapting “El Proxeneta,” by Mabel Lozano, which turns on the first-person testimony of an ex-prostitution kingpin, nicknamed El Músico, who grew his business into a network of 12 macro-brothels and 1,700 prostitutes in Spain, transforming prostitution into organized crime.
The series will adopt three points of view: “the creation of the Spanish mafia, the growth of a special police unit, which was somewhat denigrated, wasn’t taken that seriously; and the women who are brought to Spain. We hope we are up to the story which we’re trying to tell,” Peña said at the press conference.
Movistar Plus+ will produce in collaboration with Caballo Films, behind Sorogoyen’s smash hit movie “The Beasts” and “The Route.” Elena Martín, helmer of Cannes Directors’ Fortnight winner “Creatura,” and Sandra Romero (“As Silence Passes By”) are set to direct.
On a third project, María Rodríguez Soto, Pol López, Eduard Fernández, Nora Navas, Àlex Monner y Pep Ambrós will star in rural murder mystery “Matar a un oso,” based on real events, in which the death of bear Cachou sparks a criminal investigation. Structured as a crime investigation, the series talks about “something which affects us which is the huge conflict between the global, global policies and thinking and ancestral interests,” Jorge Cabezudo said in Madrid.
The Cabezudo brothers created one of Movistar Plus+ earliest series, “La Zona.” Ruíz de Azúa is currently in post on feature “Los Domingos,” co-produced with Movistar Plus+. Peña also co-wrote Javier Bardem-starrer “The Beloved,” the latest movie by Rodrigo Sorogoyen, now in post and part of Movistar Plus+’ event auteur lineup.
The three original announcements come just months after Movistar Plus+ scored a historical double becoming the first company to win in the same year Series Mania’s two top awards, scooping its main Competition’s Grand Prize with “Querer” and its Panorama’s sidebar with “Celeste,” co-produced with The Mediapro Studio.
At Cannes, Oliver Laxe’s “Sirat” gleaned rave reviews – “Oliver Laxe graduates to Cannes competition with a brilliantly bizarre, cult-ready vision of human psychology tested to its limits,” Variety wrote – was acquired for North America by Neon, won Cannes Grand Prix and by a few days later, sold by The Match Factory, had closed 11 of the 14 biggest movie markets in the world.
“Sirat” has opened in Spain to a sturdy €1.8 million ($2.1 million) after 24 days and still looks to have some legs.
More to come.