Amazon’s Prime Video Sets New Spanish Slate for 2023

Amazon’s Prime Video has announced a 2023 Spanish production slate which takes in movies and series from directors, writers and above all producers who have set Spain’s box office and global streamer rankings on fire over the last decade. 

Talent attached to the three new movies and three series unveiled Tuesday in Madrid at a Prime Video Presents Spain event include “Hildegart,” from the producers of 2022 Berlin Golden Bear winner “Alcarràs,” “Un hipster en la España vacía,” produced by Lazona Films, which made ”Spanish Affair,” the highest grossing Spanish film ever in Spain; and “Apocalipsis Z: El principio del fin,” backed by Nostromo Pictures, behind “Through My Window,” the sixth-most watched non-English movie ever on Netflix.

Another title, docuseries “El Circo de los Muchachos” is co-written by Pepe Coira, co-scribe of “Hierro” and “Rapa,” two of the most popular series to date on Telefonica’s Movistar+. 

The news slate announcement comes just days after Amazon Studios and Prime Video triumphed at the Platino Awards, winning best Spanish-speaking-world film and series for “Argentina, 1985” and “News of a Kidnapping” respectively.

It comes as Prime Video already has what it calls three “major productions” in the pipeline: “Romancero,” “Los Farad” and “Reina Roja,” which it unveiled at Tuesday’s press conference showing first-look images.

One highlight was most certainly “Reina Roja,” starring “Riot Police’s” Hovic Keuchkerian and Vicky Luengo, a behind-the-scenes video shown at Prime Video presents Spain underscoring its big production values. Directed by Koldo Sierra and with Amaya Muruzábal as showrunner, the series, adapting the breakneck-paced crime thrillers of Juan Gómez-Jurado. The series is now in post-production, Adriana Izquierdo, Prime Video development exec for original series, said at the presentation. 

Prime Video also announced the return of singing talent show “Operación Triunfo,” the first live series to stream on Prime Video in Spain, and that Dani Rovira, star of “Spanish Affair” and Eva Soriano, a comedian with her own show on Movistar+, “Showriano,” will dub main characters in the awaited Japanese reboot of the hit Takeshi Kitano-hosted 1980s adventure variety show “Takeshi’s Castle.”

This technique, where Spanish comedians produced a laughably spoof dub which often had little to do with events happening on screen in the original Japanese show, yielded a cult TV show on Telecinco in the 1990s.

In all, Prime Video’s new slate in Spain can be read several ways. It is tapping top movie talent for movies which, though maybe long in development, seek to capitalise on the huge audience and branding success of the Oscar-nominated “Argentina, 1985.” 

Though titles range widely, many involve either true crime or action, broad prime audience drivers in an OTT world. 

Amazon’s Prime Video is unveiling key steps in Spain in its transformation from a movie-TV service into a broad entertainment broadcaster.  

“This new slate is testament to our ambition of creating high quality shows and movies with broad appeal, which will delight local and global audiences,” said James Farrell, VP of Local Originals, Amazon Studios. “We’re working with the best creatives in Spain to uncover the stories and formats that we think will connect with Spanish audiences at home and around the world.”

“We want to become the ultimate entertainment destination for our customers, and our upcoming launches reflect that ambition,” added Koro Castellano, country director for Prime Video in Spain.  “At Prime Video, we offer add-on channels and the ability to buy or rent films and shows as well as a wide catalogue of original and exclusive shows and movies. We’re playing a different game, and the new and upcoming slate we have presented today demonstrate how committed we are to the audiovisual industry in Spain.”

The new production slate of upcoming Spanish Original productions revealed by Prime Video on. Tuesday in Madrid:    

“Apocalypse Z: El Principio del Fin,” (film, Carles Torrens)   

Starring Francisco Ortiz, the lead in “García!” an action adventure thriller from Adrian Guerra’s Nostromo Pictures, behind “Through My Window” and “God’s Crooked Lines,” with widower Manel sheltering from a rabies-like disease which sweeps the planet, until forced to  leave and meet unlikely but essential traveling companions. Torrens (“Sky Rojo,” “Locked Up”) directs. Written by Angel Agudo (“Love in Difficult Times”).

“El Castillo de Takeshi,” (Miguel Campos)

An eight-episode dubbed version of the new Japanese original, produced by Ecofrados Encofrasa (“La Resistencia”), executive produced by Jorge Ponce (“La Resistencia”) and Javier Valera, a writer on the same show, with all episodes of the Spanish version being made available on Prime Video in Spain on July 10. The Japanese version will be available for Prime members in Spain later this year. 

“El circo de los muchachos,” (series, Elías León Siminiani)

Billed as a true-crime docuseries, co-written by Pepe Coira (“Hierro,” “Rapa”) and Léon Simiani, an Ondas 2022 Award for Best Documentary (“800 Meters”) and best short fiction film Goya Award winner “Arquitectura emocional 1959), the five-part tale, spanning 50 years, of Father Jesus Silva who in 1956, under dictators Francisco Franco, founds a city of children on the outskirts of Ourense, a town in Galicia, which some 50 years later is mired by accusation of corruption and sexual abuse.

“En Fin,” (scripted series, Enrique Lojo, David Sáinz)

Created by Lojo, a writer on “Toy Boy,” and David Sáinz (“Malviviendo,” “Grasa”) who also directs, an action comedy following a Tomás who abandons his wife and daughter when the end of the world is announced, only to repent when the apocalypse fails to happen.  

“Hildegart,” (film, Paula Ortiz)

A second major take on the true story of Hildegart Rodríguez, a precocious and prolific writer in Spain’s 1930s, raised by her mother to become a model of future women, friend of H.G. Wells, who, in this take at least, begins to experience freedom, meeting socialist Abel Vilella, leading to a dramatic response by her tyrannical and paranoiac mother. Packing a strong talent package, “Hildegart” is written by Eduard Sola, scribe of “Through My Window,” and Clara Roquet, the multi-prized writer-director of Cannes Critics’ Week entry “Libertad.” Paula Ortiz (“The Bride”) directs. Produced by Elástica Films María Zamora and Avalon’s Stefan Schmitz, backers of “Alcarràs.”  

“Un Hipster en la España Vacía,” (film, Emilio Martínez Lázaro)

Produced by Gonzalo Salazar-Simpson’s Lazona Films, behind “Spanish Affair,” written-exec produced by Daniel Castro (“Grand Hotel,” “Vote for Juan”), a comedy is which Quique is dispatched to a village in deep Spain Teruel to lead its politics of recuperation but soon discovers he was sent there so that his girlfriend and leader of his party could spend more time together.  Writer-actor Lalo Tenorio (“El cielo puede esperar”)  and Berta Vázquez (“Locked Up”) star.