News

Max confirmed today the streaming service has renewed HBO Original series Like Water for Chocolate for a second season. The series has become the most watched Latin American content on Max worldwide and has climbed to rank among the top three most watched series on the platform during its premiere month.

The renewal announcement was made by Salma Hayek Pinault, executive producer of the series, during an event in London where HBO and Max content leaders including Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO of HBO and Max Content, and Mariano César, SVP of General Entertainment Content and Programming Strategy for Latin America and Ush, presented top upcoming titles for Max globally.

“We are proud to see the success that Like Water for Chocolate is having on international screens. It is an original Latin American production made with the highest quality standards that characterize HBO series, with an incredibly talented community of local creators and artists,...

The HBO Original series Like Water for Chocolate debuts on Sunday, November 3, on HBO Latino in the U.S. and will be available to stream globally on Max, where the platform is available. New episodes will debut weekly.

An original production from Warner Bros. Discovery, the series is produced by Ventanarosa Productions, Endemol Shine North America, and Endemol Shine Boomdog.

Like Water for Chocolate explores the idea that sometimes traditions can become a prison, an obstacle for love. Tita de la Garza and Pedro Múzquiz are two souls deeply in love yet unable to be together due to entrenched family customs.

The protagonists navigate a world of magical realism and rich flavors as Tita struggles between the destiny imposed on her by her family and her fight for love. Along the way, the audience will witness her greatest refuge: the kitchen.

For Tita, her magical connection to cooking becomes an active resistance against oppression,...

One of Netflix's top shows at the moment is the Mexican drama series The Accident. Many people are calling it one of the saddest shows they've ever watched, which given the plot, makes sense. It's a 10-part series revolving around the aftermath of a children's birthday party gone wrong. When a gush of wind sweeps up a bouncy house filled with kids at a birthday party, it causes the death of three children. This tragic accident changes the lives of a close-knit community forever.

Klych López and Gracia Querejeta directed the episodes for the show from scripts written by Leonardo Padrón. You might recognize some of the cast from previous projects, such as Alberto Guerra, who is best known for starring as Darío Sepúlveda in the Netflix crime drama series Griselda. Ana Claudia Talancón, Sebastian Martínez, Eréndira Ibarra, Shaní Lozano, Silverio Palacios, Erick Elías, Erik Hayser, Valentina Acosta, Macarena García Romero,...

Get ready to dive into the latest must-watch series that’s sure to keep you glued to your Netflix screens! The Accident, a gripping Mexican thriller created by the talented Leonardo Padrón, made its debut on Netflix on August 21, 2024, and it’s already got viewers buzzing.

This new drama takes us on a heart-wrenching journey following a tragic incident at a child's birthday party. What unfolds is an exploration of grief, guilt, and the complex web of emotions that follow. According to its official IMDb logline:

A tragic accident radically changes the lives of three families, triggering a terrible spiral of guilt, resentment, and violence, that will lead them to explore the outermost edges of pain, endurance, and mercy.IMDb

The series, originally titled Accidente, is brought to life by a stellar cast of Mexican actors who masterfully embody the complex characters at the center of this emotional rollercoaster. Curious...

Universal International Studios has appointed former Netflix executive Tesha Crawford as senior VP of global scripted series.

Based in London, Crawford will report into Uis president Beatrice Springborn and focus on expanding the studio’s scripted slate in the U.K. and Europe. Crawford will be responsible for scouting and packaging new projects for Uis and supporting its portfolio of deals, talent and projects. She will also head up the studio’s U.K.-based creative team.

Crawford joins from Netflix, where she spent the last six years working across international original series and was one of the first content executives hired on the Netflix International Originals team.

The exec started in Latin America, building the platform’s slate of originals including “La Casa De Las Flores” (“The House of Flowers”), “Ingobernable,” “3,” “Coisa Mais Linda” (“Girls from Ipanema”) and “Sintonia.”

She later relocated to Amsterdam to lead the company’s first Nordics series team,...

Season three of "La Reina del Sur" is finally here, and it's been a long time coming. The Telemundo series has been in the works for over a decade, and it stars Kate del Castillo as Teresa Mendoza, an unlikely cartel queenpin who rises through the ranks of the drug-smuggling world with nothing but her grit and street smarts. This season will show Mendoza in a way we've never seen her, as a spy and as a mother desperately trying to reunite with her daughter, Sofia. For 60 episodes, viewers will follow Mendoza's dangerous adventures through Bolivia, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, and Mexico as part of her new mission to end her life as a fugitive once and for all. "The whole story is growing and maturing in so many ways," del Castillo tells Popsugar. "You're going to see a Teresa Mendoza that we all love but more [of a] warrior. She's a warrior,...

Playing the anti-hero Teresa Mendoza in Telemundo’s hit drama “La Reina del Sur” (Queen of the South) has become second nature to its star, Kate del Castillo. In a way, her hectic career as a producer, actor and entrepreneur, mirrors her character’s upstream struggle against patriarchy — sans the guns and contraband.

Speaking via Zoom from the U.K. where she’s working on the indie film “A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea & Tomorrow” with director Katherine Fairfax Wright, del Castillo reflected on the parallels between managing the challenges of her multi-faceted career with those faced by Mendoza in the show’s long-awaited third season, which premieres Oct. 18 on Telemundo. “La Reina” is a co-production of Telemundo and Netflix, which has international rights to the series.

The new season sees the titular La Reina taking on the brutal male-dominated cartels of South America once again, picking up four years after U.

In a bid to address the underrepresentation of women in film and television, a new production company run by three women filmmakers in Mexico has launched. Dubbed Anónima Media, it’s founded by entrepreneur-journalist-producer Bárbara Arredondo Ayala, actor-producer Eréndira Ibarra and scriptwriter-producer Natasha Ybarra-Klor with the mission to create content for and by women of Latin America and Spain.

“We want to create spaces where women can freely tell their own stories from their diverse realities and thus strengthen the new wave of talent from Ibero-American women,” said Arredondo Ayala, co-founder of Decididas, an online platform that seeks to raise awareness on the work of women role models.

“Real inclusion, the one we seek, has as its mission to vindicate all the unrecognized players out there so that no one ever again remains anonymous,” said Ibarra, whose acting credits includes Netflix’s “Sense8” and the movie “Matrix: Resurrections.” Ibarra pointed...

If you're a fan of family sitcoms and the superhero genre, you'll adore Disney's Ultra Violet & Black Scorpion.

Lucifer's Scarlett Estevez will star as a teen who gets magical powers from a Luchadora mask and opts to do good while working alongside her uncle with a similar secret identity. Of course, she'll have to juggle school, family, and keeping her identity a secret from her helicopter mom, Nina.

TV Fanatic had the distinct pleasure of speaking with talented actress, activist, and the "helicopter mom" in question, Marianna Burelli, about the significance of this role and how fun the series is. Check it out below!

Jumping right in. Ultra Violet & Black Scorpion looks like a really fun series. Can you tell us a little bit about the concept and all?

Yeah. It's a family comedy within a superhero context. It's about a girl, Violet Rodriguez, who is 13 years old, who...

Apple TV+ released the trailer for the upcoming bilingual series “Now & Then” on Tuesday: The eight-episode thriller from Bambú Producciones is about a group of college friends who are being blackmailed over a death from 20 years before. It’s set to launch globally with three episodes on Friday, May 20, on Apple TV+, with new episodes weekly every Friday through June 24.

Set in Miami and shot in both Spanish and English, the series stars Rosie Perez as a cop eager to have a second chance to solve the mysterious death. The series also stars Marina de Tavira (“Roma”), José María Yazpik (“Narcos: Mexico”), Maribel Verdú (“Y tu mamá también”), Manolo Cardona (“Narcos”), Soledad Villamil (“The Secret in Their Eyes”), Jorge López (Netflix’s “Elite”), Alicia Jaziz (HBO’s “Love Spells”), Dario Yazbek Bernal (“The House of Flowers”), Alicia Sanz (Prime Video’s “El Cid”), Jack Duarte (“Ingobernable,”) and Miranda de la Serna...

The Matrix Resurrections opens in Theaters and HBO Max on December 22.

Recently the actor was interviewed by Esquire magazine for the Winter 2021 issue. https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a38241136/keanu-reeves-interview-2021/

The star of Constantine, John Wick, The Lake House and Speed, among a multitude of others, loves movies. “When he’s home for a stretch and has a day with nothing to do, he sometimes goes to the movie theater and sees two, maybe three movies in a day. He loves, loves, loves movies. Even on an off day while he’s working—he went to see Dune the other night in Paris. (“Awesome.”)”

Watch the Q&a video with this delightful, funny actor.

Reeves stars in the highly anticipated and long awaited film reunites original stars Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss in the iconic roles they made famous, Neo and Trinity.

The film also stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (the “Aquaman” franchise) Jessica Henwick,...

Spanish rapper C. Tangana sat at a table covered in fruits and wine and looked ready for a feast when he took the stage at the 2021 Latin Grammys to perform “Ingobernable” with his family of collaborators. The ensemble sang and clapped along during the flamenco-inspired performance, which also included Nathy Peluso and Natalia Lafourcade.

Tangana is nominated for five Latin Grammy Awards this year, among the most of any artist, and has already picked up wins for Best Engineered Album (El Madrileño), Best Alternative Song (“Nominao” featuring Jorge Drexler), and...

Will “Matrix” fans take the Nft pill?

Warner Bros. is launching the sale of 100,000 nonfungible tokens (NFTs) of “Matrix”-inspired avatars later this month. The studio is pairing the hype over NFTs with the upcoming release of “The Matrix Resurrections,” aiming to gin up excitement for the long-awaited fourth movie in the popular sci-fi franchise — and also potentially landing a $5 million windfall over the sale of the digital-collectible NFTs.

It’s a natural tie-up that will put fans in the virtual world of “The Matrix,” through what the studio claims is the largest “Pfp” (profile picture) Nft drop ever with the 100,000 unique avatars available for purchase. NFTs provide a way to authenticate the ownership of unique pieces of digital content, using distributed blockchain technology — they’re akin to real-world collectibles like baseball cards. Entertainment companies like Warner Bros., Fox, ViacomCBS and Lionsgate have joined the gold rush, seeing NFTs both...

Trans-Atlantic creation studio 2bOriginals, the production arm of digital media group 2b, is bringing “Misfit #eresotehaces,” a Spanish-language adaptation of the popular Dutch film “Misfit,” to theaters in 10 Latin American countries on Oct. 14.

The Dutch original first hit theaters in 2017, and by year’s end was the third highest grossing Dutch film of the year, leading to two sequels and an upcoming Netflix original series. The “Misfit” franchise has now been remade in five territories, establishing it as the most remade Dutch original feature in the country’s cinematic history.

For this Spanish-language adaptation, long-time viral video powerhouse 2b, creators of the Spanish-language hit viral video platform Enchufe.tv, is making the jump to a traditional theatrical model, with longtime Enchufe.tv writer, producer and director Orlando Herrera taking the reigns as director on the ambitious new feature.

“Misfit #eresotehaces” is the story of Julia, played by Mexican actress Alicia Jaziz...

Warner Bros. Pictures has released a first teaser poster along with the website for The Matrix Resurrections, prior to the first big trailer release this Thursday. In the original movie, Neo (Keanu Reeves) was told by Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne): “You take the blue pill…the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill…you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” Neo chooses the red pill and joins the rebellion.

http://whatisthematrix.com/

The long-awaited fourth film in the “Matrix” universe, the groundbreaking franchise that redefined a genre, “The Matrix Resurrections” reunites original stars Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss as Neo and Trinity, the iconic roles they made famous in “The Matrix.”

The film also stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (the “Aquaman” franchise) Jessica Henwick, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris (“Gone Girl”), Priyanka Chopra Jonas,...

Exclusive: AppleTV+’s bilingual thriller series Now and Then has added to its cast Jorge Lopez (Elite), Alicia Jaziz, Dario Yazbek Bernal, Alicia Sanz, Jack Duarte and Miranda de la Serna (Before Opening Night) .

The Spanish and English series hails from Bambú Producciones and creators Ramón Campos, Teresa Fernández-Valdés and Gema R. Neira, the team behind the Spanish series Velvet, Cable Girls and Gran Hotel. Gideon Raff will executive produce and direct the first two episodes.

Set in Miami, Now and Then explores the differences between youthful aspirations and the reality of adulthood, when the lives of a group of college best friends are forever changed after a celebratory weekend ends up with one of them dead. Now, 20 years later, the remaining five are reluctantly reunited by a threat that puts their seemingly perfect worlds at risk.

Exclusive: HBO Max is developing the one-hour dramedy Women’s Studies from Natalia Castells-Esquivel. Dani Chase is the co-creator.

Described as “Dear White People meets The L World sprinkled with some Broad City humor”. The series follows Adriana, a Mexican-American, who starts her first day at a women’s college in Atlanta filled with “queer Af, feminist women” — but it doesn’t seem like Adriana’s scene considering she is superficial and a little ignorant. But like Alice in Wonderland, her ideas and values are challenged the second she steps on campus. This pilot is loosely based on Castells-Esquivel’s experience at a women’s college in Atlanta. The series explores the loss of innocence and self-actualization as the audience watches a campus of young women evolve, embracing the new, dispensing with the old, and figuring out how to topple the heteronormative patriarchy in the process.

Castells-Esquivel recently worked as...

“Matria,” with “A Fantastic Woman” star Daniela Vega, and Raul Camarena’s “The Bus,” with Meraquí Pradis from “Dani Who?,” have both made the cut for December’s Blood Window Lab, the feature project competition at Latin America’s biggest genre movie market.

Part of Ventana Sur, a film-tv market-meet run by the Cannes Festival and Market and Argentina’s Incaa film-tv agency, the Blood Window Lab will be held online for the first time, running Nov. 30-Dec. 4. As state film funding plunges in Brazil and Argentina, 2020’s edition received a record 214 project submissions.

2020’s lineup shows Latin American fantasy genre at least holding up, despite the economic battering taken by many Latin American countries before and during Covid-19.

“Producers and directors are developing strategies to tell stories which are shaped to production realities but still maintain a freshness and do not ignore their social context,” Javier Fernández, head of the Blood Window program,...

Laura Esquivel’s 1989 novel Like Water For Chocolate, adapted for the screen in 1993, is now headed to the stage: A musical version to be directed by Tony Award winner Michael Mayer with original music by the Grammy Award-winning Latin group La Santa Cecilia is in development, producers announced today.

La Santa Cecilia will write the lyrics along with Pulitzer Prize winner Quiara Alegría Hudes, with a book by Lisa Loomer, according to producers Tom Hulce and Ira Pittleman.

A section of the never-before-heard music will by performed tonight by La Santa Cecilia as part of the digital concert event ¡Viva Broadway! Hear Our Voices at BroadwayCares.org.

“In times of waiting many wonderful things happen,” Esquivel said in a statement. “Dreams take shape and become voices, harmonies, dance. The musical Like Water for Chocolate waited until a group of extraordinary dreamers came together: La Santa Cecilia and Quiara Alegría Hudes,...

Exclusive: Harold Torres has signed with ICM Partners for representation in all areas. Torres is currently receiving rave reviews for his chillingly brilliant turn as a Narco enforcer in Amazon’s limited series ZeroZeroZero. The series was created by Stefano Sollima, Leonardo Fasoli, and Mauricio Katz; Andrea Riseborough and Dane DeHaan also star.

While the show features incredible performances across the board, Torres stole every scene he was in. Following the show’s premiere in April, Torres quickly was on every agencies radar and seemed like only a matter of time before he was signed by one of the majors.

The three-time Ariel Award nominated Torres has appeared in more than 30 films in his native Mexico, including Rudo Y Cursi alongside Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, as well as Cary Joji Fukunaga’s debut feature Sin Nombre. In 2013 he won the actor prize at the 2013 Morelia Film Festival for...

Mexico’s largest indie production facility, Estudios Ggm, is opening new soundstages as it restarts production activity in June. News comes as the country has begun to emerge from its Covid-19 lockdown.

The new stages, measuring between 10,000 to 13,000 sq. ft., will complement the studio’s six other soundstages. Construction of one soundstage is nearly complete while the other two are slated to be ready by November.

Launched in 2016 in response to the burgeoning demand for premium content from both OTTs and international linear networks, Estudios Ggm has been providing stages, production offices, casting, editing, visual effects and other services to projects from Telemundo, Netflix, Amazon, Viacom, MGM and other companies. Some of the series shot here include: “Enemigo Intimo,” “Falsa Identidad,” “El Club,” “Luis Miguel: The Series” and “Ingobernable.” The studio houses the Netflix-certified picture and sound finishing facility, Cinematic Media. Just last February 2019, Netflix announced that it had chosen...

Obligatory disclaimer: A show that features people dropping dead for some mysterious reason is admittedly a tough sell right now. But one of the reasons that “Into the Night” isn’t quite the derivative thriller it may seem to be on first glance is that its approach is centered around survival.

The new international drama, now streaming on Netflix, focuses on a group of passengers aboard a flight heading west from Brussels to Moscow. When an Italian soldier Terenzio (Stefano Cassetti) forces his way through the gates and onto a commercial flight, he and the handful of other people with him become some of the only individuals to escape a deadly worldwide event brought on by exposure to sunlight.

Under the leadership of pilot Mathieu (Laurent Capelluto) and passenger Sylvie (Pauline Etienne), pressed into cockpit service when the rest of the crew and passengers are left at the terminal after Terenzio forces an early takeoff,...

Following the mid-April announcement of Netflix’s Covid-19 relief fund allocations for Mexico and Brazil, the streaming giant has unveiled its plans for Colombia where it has partnered with the Colombian Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences to extend aid to over 1,500 below-the-line workers in Colombia’s film and TV industry. To this end, Netflix has donated $500,000 towards the fund, which the Academy will administer.

As it has in Mexico and Brazil, the relief fund will support the hardest-hit workers who have been directly impacted by the suspension of productions across the country, such as production assistants, camera operators, lighting technicians, make-up assistants, and production drivers, among others, many of whom subsist on hourly wages and on a per project basis. A list of more than 100 eligible jobs has been determined.

“The hardest hit workers are the backbone of the entertainment industry,” said Academy president Consuelo Luzardo. “We hope...

Fremantle and Fabula have dropped the first trailer of eight-part series “La Jauría” (“The Pack”), showrun by Lucía Puenzo (“The German Doctor”), one of Latin America’s most prominent film and TV writer-directors, and starring Daniela Vega, the lead in the Academy Award winning “A Fantastic Woman.”

Set up at Chile’s Fabula, run by writer-director Pablo Larraín (“Jacky”) and brother Juan de Díos Larraín, “Gloria Bell”), “La Jauría”

Amazon’s first-ever locally-produced Amazon Original in Chile will be available to stream exclusively on Prime Video in Latin America, Caribbean and Spain.

It also marks the first international series from Fabula.

Brought onto the market at February’s Fremantle Screenings in London and now the Series Mania-MipTV virtual marketplace, “La Jauría” is also first fruit of a Fabula-Fremantle multi-year first-look production-distribution alliance. Fremantle is its global distributor.

Co-written by Puenzo, and set at a posh private Catholic school in Santiago de Chile,...

Exclusive: Eréndira Ibarra will be reuniting with Sense8 co-creator Lana Wachowski in the Warner Bros./Village Roadshow sequel The Matrix 4, which is expected to begin filming this year.

Ibarra will be joining franchise returnees Keanu Reeves (Neo), Carrie-Anne Moss (Trinity), and Jada Pinkett Smith (Niobe) as well as newcomers Jessica Henwick, Neil Patrick Harris, Toby Onwumere, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, who is rumored to be playing young Morpheus. Henwick is buzzed to play a female Neo-like character.

Wachowski will direct and co-write the screenplay with Aleksandar Hemon and David Mitchell. Wachowski is producing with Grant Hill, who executive produced Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions. The Matrix trilogy has grossed over $1.6 billion at the WW box office.

Ibarra joined the first and second seasons of Netflix’s Sense8 in the role of Daniela Velázquez. She also starred in the Kate del Castillo Netflix series Ingobernable and the Amazon Prime series El Candidato.

Madrid — Mexico’s Manolo Caro, creator-director-writer of Netflix hit “La Casa de las Flores” (“The House of Flowers”), will preside the jury of the first Iberseries, one of the Spanish-speaking world’s first TV festivals to be clearly staged not only for local audiences but the whole of Ibero-America.

Focusing on Spanish-language drama series and promoted by Spain’s Secuoya Foundation, the inaugural edition of Iberseries will take place over May 25-30 in Granada, Southern Spain.

Backed by top TV networks and Svod platforms across Spain, Latin and North America – Netflix, HBO, Movistar Plus, Atresmedia, Disney España and Azteca TV figure among operators that have already confirmed their support, according to the festival organization – Iberseries will present new details of its first edition at a presentation at next week’s Natpe market in Miami on Tuesday Jan. 21.

A symbol of and driving force in the new Spanish-language content scene, Caro...

Welcome to this week’s Ring Of Honor review, right here on Nerdly. I’m Nathan Favel and Greta Thunberg is famous. I didn’t know why until this morning. Why did people allow her to become the spokesman for climate change? There are plenty of less-arrogant people who have fought much harder than her to make progress and are never given the spot-light to say a damn thing. I know. This s— happens all the time. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. In any case, I feel a bit rusty, so…

Match #1: Dak Draper def. Shaheem Ali The following is courtesy of rohwrestling.com:

Ali seized the advantage with a flurry of offense, including a running dropkick in the corner and a Doctor Bomb for a near fall. Draper answered with a springboard back elbow before landing the Magnum Ko for the win.

My Opinion: 2.6 out of 5 – These...

While you might expect the month of December to mark a wave of holiday-related content when it comes to streaming services, it looks like Netflix has a lot more than a few Christmas specials coming down the pipeline next month. If you’re a subscribing member residing in the Us, here’s what you can look forward to binge-watching.

Sonic X (Seasons 1 and 2) – While his big screen debut isn’t set to release until February, everyone’s favorite anthropomorphic hedgehog is still making a splash on Netflix in December. The first two seasons of this Japanese animated series will be available for streaming on the 1st and for those unfamiliar, the show follows Sonic and the gang as they attempt to save one of their friends after being accidentally teleported to Earth.

The Witcher (Season 1) – Announced well over two years ago, the series based on Andrzej Sapkowski’s best-selling books...

“La Reina del Sur” actress Kate Del Castillo and her Cholawood Productions team have signed an overall deal with Endemol Shine Boomdog, a division of Endemol Shine North America, the studio said Wednesday.

Under the pact, the Mexican actress and producer will both produce and star in projects jointly developed between Endemol Shine Boomdog and Cholawood.

Del Castillo runs Cholawood with her partners, veteran Latin entertainment industry executive Carmen Cervantes and Daytime Emmy Award-winning journalist Jessica Maldonado. Their banner will now be based out of Endemol Shine’s Los Angeles offices.

Also Read: 'The Way She Spoke' Theater Review: Kate del Castillo Explores Violence Against Women in Mexico

Flavio Morales, Endemol Shine Latino’s Los Angeles-based executive vice president of U.S. Initiatives, will oversee all programming efforts with Del Castillo and the Cholawood team.

According to Endemol, “the two sides are currently exploring scripted and unscripted development opportunities in both English and Spanish.

Endemol Shine Boomdog, the Mexico City-based division of Endemol Shine North America, has signed a development pact with actress Kate del Castillo and her fledgling Cholawood Productions company.

Founded by Del Castillo and her partners, entertainment industry exec Carmen Cervantes and journalist Jessica Maldonado, Cholawood will be based out of Endemol Shine’s Los Angeles headquarters.

Del Castillo will both produce and star in shows that will be jointly developed between Cholawood and Endemol. Flavio Morales, Endemol Shine Latino’s Los Angeles-based executive VP of U.S. Initiatives, will oversee the projects with Del Castillo and her Cholawood team.

“It’s an ideal time for Latina-led content; we need more projects told from a woman’s point of view,” said Del Castillo of her company’s mandate to produce more premium content with strong female and Latino characters. The first-look deal could encompass scripted and unscripted television, feature films and documentaries.

When “Embrace of the Serpent,” a psychedelic exploration of Colombian tribes in the Amazon, was released in 2015 to great acclaim and was shortlisted for the foreign-language Oscar, it instantly launched director Ciro Guerra onto the international film stage. The Colombian filmmaker, along with his ex-wife and producer Cristina Gallego, then had enough industry support to make their long-gestating passion project, “Birds of Passage.” The film, which became Colombia’s Oscar submission in 2018, uncovers the roots of Colombia’s drug war in the rise of illegal trading within the remote Wayyu tribes.

Working with a new set of collaborators, Guerra’s newest project is a mystery thriller for Netflix, which follows a disturbing string of femicides in the Amazon. “Green Frontier,” which also bears the Spanish-language title “Frontera Verde,” was shot on location in Colombia and filmed entirely in Spanish. The newly released first trailer promises stunning cinematography, gorgeous landscapes and...

Kate Del Castillo is jumping into the mixed martial arts ring — although she won’t be literally throwing punches.

The Mexican actress acquired an equity stake in Combate Americas, an Mma sports entertainment company targeting Hispanic audiences, as part of a $20 million Series B round of funding. The round brings the company to $38 million raised to date and was led by Combate Americas chairman Joe Plumeri, former CEO of Citibank North America. Other investors were Irving Place Capital co-managing partner John Howard and Cliff Sobel, and managing partner and co-founder of Valor Capital Group and former U.S. ambassador to Brazil.

The size of Del Castillo’s investment wasn’t disclosed but the company says she’s now a “significant shareholder” of Combate Americas.

Del Castillo, a longtime boxing fan, said she isn’t drawn by the violence and blood-sport action of Mma but rather sees Combate Americas as an...

Taking place in the early 1970s in Mexico City, Netflix's Roma is a semibiographical take on the life of Oscar-winning director Alfonso Cuarón, following a formative year in the life of a middle-class family and their live-in housekeeper. The film allowed Netflix to score its first-ever Oscar nomination for best picture.

Yalitza Aparicio, who makes her debut in the film as Cleodegaria "Cleo" Gutiérrez, one of the family's maids, also became the first Indigenous woman (and only the second Mexican woman) to get an Oscar nomination for best actress. Another exciting individual honor for the film: a best supporting actress nomination for Marina de Tavira, who plays Sra. Sofía, the secretive mother of four and matriarch of the family.

Related: Best Foreign Film Is a Hot Oscar Category This Year - Here's What to Know

De Tavira's nomination is one of the biggest surprises of this year's Oscar nominations.

Exclusive: Mexican actress Kate Del Castillo, who stars in the Netflix political drama Ingobernable and La Reina del Sur on Telemundo, has been added to the cast of Sony’s Bad Boys for Life sequel starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence.

Smith and Lawrence are returning Detectives Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett who, along with Miami Pd’s elite Ammo team, attempt to take down Armando Armas, head of a drug cartel.

Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah are directing the pic from a script by Joe Carnahan, Peter Craig, and Chris Bremmer.

Previoulsy announced cast includes Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Charles Melton, Jacob Scipio, Paola Nuñez, Latin music superstar Nicky Jam, and DJ Khaled.

The pic, which is currently filming, is being produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, Doug Belgrad, and Smith. Barry Waldman, Mike Stenson, Chad Oman, and James Lassiter are executive producers. Bad Boys for Life is slated to...

Filming has begun on Lucía Puenzo’s psychological gender thriller series “La Jauría,” a co-production by Fremantle with Pablo and Juan de Dios Larraín’s Chile-u.S.-based Fabula.

The eight-episode Spanish-language drama series, shooting in Santiago, Chile, features Daniela Vega, the lead in Fabula’s Academy Award-winning “A Fantastic Woman.”

Lucía Puenzo, one of Latin America’s most renowned women writers-directors directs the series alongside Sergio Castro (“La mujer de barro”), Marialy Rivas (“Young & Wild”) and Nicolás Puenzo (“Los Invisibles”).

“La Jauría” also stars Antonia Zegers and María Gracia Omegna, who alongside Vega play a police force specialized in gender-related crimes that investigates the strange disappearance of a young woman.

It opens at Santa Inés School, whose students stage a take-over in protest for an alleged case of abuse between a teacher and a student. Blanca Ibarra, a student leading the take-over, suddenly goes missing.

Hours later, a recording...

Actor Kate del Castillo made headlines in October 2015 for taking Sean Penn on a risky trek to meet with notorious Mexican drug lord and fugitive Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman in a remote location in Mexico. She has no regrets about the incident, even though it hurt her acting career and prevented her from returning to her homeland for about three years.

“That was an episode of my life that I do not regret at all,” del Castillo said Tuesday during her appearance at the winter Television Critics Assn. press tour in Pasadena, Calif. to promote the new season of her Telemundo drama series “La Reina del Sur.” “It was an experience I will keep in myself and will last forever. I regret that I didn’t follow my instincts in many ways.”

Del Castillo was believed to be alluding to the falling out that she subsequently had with Penn over the incident,...

Kate del Castillo, the star of La Reina del Sur, does not regret becoming a major player in the El Chapo saga but admitted that she “hated” the fact that she had to have a double for Mexico-set scenes of the Telemundo narco drama.

Del Castillo, speaking on day one of TCA, said that she was not able to shoot her scenes of the drama, which returns to the NBCU-backed Spanish-language broadcaster after eight years, because of “her little thing” with the drug lord. However, she revealed that she has since returned to Mexico.

The Jane the Virgin star helped set up a meeting between Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán in 2015 and Sean Penn in 2015. She was not charged with any crimes as a result of the incident but has accused former President Enrique Pena Nieto’s prosecutors of leaking information that she was linked to drug trafficking.

“That was...

UTA has signed Mexican actress Marina De Tavira in all areas.

Most recently, she starred in Alfonso Cuaron’s critically acclaimed movie “Roma,” playing the mother Sofia. “Roma,” which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and was named best film by the New York Film Critics Circle, was recently nominated for a handful of Golden Globes, including best director and best foreign film. Up next, De Tavira will appear in the drama “This Is Not Berlin,” set to debut next year.

Additionally, her previous film credits include “Ana y Bruno,” “Ilusiones S.A.,” and “Espacio Interior.” On the television side, she has appeared in Amazon Prime’s “Falco,” Netflix’s “Ingobernable,” and Telemundo’s “El Senor de los Cielos,” among other titles.

Her acting career first developed on the stage, as De Tavira has participated in more than 20 plays, and produced and starred in Mexican stagings of Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal,...

After nearly a decade, Kate Del Castillo will reprise her role as Teresa Mendoza in the return of the Narco drama La Reina del Sur, set to debut in 2019 on Telemundo. The original story, based on the novel of the same by Arturo Perez-Reverte, follows Mendoza’s climb to the top of the male-dominated Narco world that trafficked drugs on a global scale.

Joining Del Castillo in the new season, which shot on location in seven countries, are a mix of returning actors and new multilingual, international talent including Raoul Bova (Under the Tuscan Sun), Eric Roberts (The Dark Knight), Paola Nuñez (The Son), Antonio Gil (Quantum of Solace), and legendary novela actor Humberto Zurita.

The series will pick up eight years after the events of the finale where audiences learned that Mendoza was pregnant and unsure of her future. When La Reina returns, audiences learn she’s disappeared into the U.

Post-production facility Cinematic Media has launched in Mexico City. Located on the lot at Estudios Ggm, services will include dailies, look development, editorial finishing and color grading. Its first project is the second season of the Netflix series Ingobernable. Scot Evans, most recently Evp, Technicolor PostWorks, New York, will serve as CEO. Engineering design was supervised by post vet John Stevens. “We can handle six or seven series simultaneously,” said Evans. “A lot of facilities in Hollywood would be envious of what we have here…We can literally walk down a flight of stairs to support a project shooting on one of the stages. Proximity is important. We expect many productions to locate their offices and editorial teams here.” The operation is the first facility in Mexico to feature high-speed connectivity via private network Sohonet. Among the team is Managing Director Arturo Sedano and Senior Colorist Ana Montano.

The Development...

Cancun, Mexico — It’s boom time for drama series production in Mexico, Spain and Brazil, driven by pay TV and Ott players and their competitors alike. As a co-production forum, the 5th MipCancun moved up a gear. This year saw its biggest attendance, plus strategic alliances, hints at or presentations of multiple new series announcements of huge ambitions – Televisa’s 20-title remake extravaganza Fábrica de sueños; Secouya’s plan for a Madrid Content City. 14 takes on the new Spanish-language series gold rush:

1.Spanish-language Series Production Booms

MipCancun rocked. But it did so as a production forum, not a classic sales market. The production driver? The ever more fully-fledged Ott platform financing phenomenon. “It started focused much more on global content. But we’ve seen a second wave now of these same players – Netflix, Amazon, moving into more local content, in Latin America, India, Korea, even in the Middle East,” Creative Artists...

Cancun, Mexico — Raul Berdones, president of Spain’s Grupo Secuoya, Netflix’s exclusive production services partner at its European Production Hub in Madrid, plans to create a Madrid Content City.

The plan would build – literally – on Grupo Secuoya’s 22,000 square-meter Ciudad de la Tele, the site of Netflix’s European Production Hub, but expand to a final 140,000 square meters, Berdones announced Wednesday on the first day of MipCancun.

Secouya hopes to have Madrid Content City up-and-running by the second semester of 2020, with 15 sound-stages in operation, plus multiple backup facilities.

La Ciudad de la Tele currently has three soundstages and two more on the way. The ultimate gameplan would be to create “Europe’s Silicon Valley” and biggest production center, attracting both national film-tv players and international pay TV and global Svod players, Berdones added.

To be announced in far fuller detail in upcoming months, the plans look highly ambitious. They do play,...

In a move that signals good news for Colombia and Latin America’s entertainment community, Netflix has announced six new original Colombian shows that are primed to bow this year and next.

These are comprised of the second installment of crime anthology “Historia de un Crimen,” two new local stand-up comedy specials with Liss Pereira and Ricardo Quevedo; “Wild District” starring Juan Pablo Raba; young adult fantasy “Always a Witch”; and crime thriller “Green Frontier” produced by Dynamo and Ciro Guerra.

The streaming giant has more than 70 shows being filmed across Latin America in its bid to ramp up local original content and grow its regional subscriber base. Netflix currently has a worldwide subscriber base of 130 million.

“Netflix is humbled and proud to give a voice to local talent and creators, helping them to not only reach Colombian viewers, but also to connect people all around the world to their unique stories,...

Global production giant Fremantle is teaming with Chilean producer Fabula on the Spanish-language drama series La Jauria (The Pack).

Director and screenwriter Lucia Puenzo (Ingobernable, Wacolda) is on board as showrunner for the eight-part series, which is described as a psychological thriller and is set to start production in January in Chile.

Daniela Vega, star of Fabula’s A Fantastic Woman, which won this year’s best foreign-language film Oscar, leads the cast, marking her debut in a Latin American drama series. The Pack also features Antonia Zegers (A Fantastic Woman, The Club).

“We are immensely proud to be ...

Netflix not only racked up the most Emmy nominations this year, but now the streaming giant and several of its competitors are preparing to give the Emmy Awards ceremony a run for its money.

Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu will all release either brand new shows or new seasons of current shows on Sept. 14, just three days before the annual TV awards show. Netflix announced earlier today that the second season of “American Vandal”–which will seek to unmask a villain known as the Turd Burglar–will bow on the 14th, along with the new talk series “Norm MacDonald Has a Show.” Netflix previously announced that “BoJack Horseman” Season 5 will debut on that date, as will the second season of the Mexican political drama “Ingobernable.”

That’s also when Amazon will launch the new comedy series “Forever” starring Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen. The duo will play a married couple whose...

Variety is pleased to announce its annual list of 10 Actors to Watch, an honor the publication has bestowed since 1998.

Past honorees include many future Oscar winners and nominees, such as Mahershala Ali, Timothée Chalamet, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Brie Larson, Lupita Nyong’o, and Melissa Leo.

This year’s honorees will be feted in the Nov. 6 issue of Variety, as well as at a reception Nov. 11 at the Resort at Pelican Hill in conjunction with Visit Newport Beach and the Newport Beach Film Festival. In addition to the 10 Actors to Watch, the Newport Beach Film Festival will also bestow industry honors.

“Visit Newport Beach and the Newport Beach Film Festival have been proud to partner with Variety over the past five years to host their 10 Cinematographers and 10 Brits to Watch. Adding a third celebration further solidifies our strong partnership and shared support of and love for great films and the...

Latin American women’s horror anthology “28,” Chilean Claudia Huaiquimilla’s “Riot” and titles from Mexico’s Marco Antonio Salgado and Colombia’s Contravía Films figure among 35 projects at the 7th Santiago Lab, one of the biggest industry attractions at this year’s Sanfic-Santiago Intl. Film Festival (Sanfic).

The full Sanfic lineup will be announced later today, July 31, in Santiago de Chile. Boasting a strong line this year as last in genre, the Lab’s selection announcement comes as Sanfic confirms its latest strategic partnership with another festival, a Maff Prize which will see one fiction feature project at the Santiago Lab selected for Spain’s Malaga Fund and Co-production Event, taking place in March 2019.

The Tribeca Film Institute already chooses one documentary title for the Tribeca Film Festival’s industry space. With Colombia’s Cartagena Festival selecting one title for its Puerto Documentary Workshop, one Santiago Lab title will also segue,...

Netflix has ordered a drama set in the world of Mexican billionaires titled “Monarca.”

The series, which was originally in development at ABC back in 2015, is described as a high stakes, multi-generational family saga about a tequila-born Mexican business empire, and the battle that ensues when a member of the family decides to fight the dirty system her family helped create. The series will go into production this fall and is slated to debut in 2019.

Starring Irene Azuela and Juan Manuel Bernal, “Monarca” is being produced by Salma Hayek’s Ventanarosa, Lemon Studios, and Michael McDonald from Stearns Castle. The series was created by Diego Gutierrez who will also serve as showrunner, and is written by Fernando Rovzar, Julia Denis, Ana Sofia Clerici, and Sandra García Velten.

“I’m extremely excited to partner with Netflix, and to be working with amazing Mexican talent in front of and behind the camera,...

Actress Kate del Castillo — who joined Sean Penn on his October 2015 trek through the Mexican jungle to interview the world’s most famous fugitive — angered the two-time Oscar winner with today’s release of her Netflix docuseries, “The Day I Met El Chapo: The Kate Del Castillo Story.” The New York Times reports that Penn’s lawyer, Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., claimed in a letter last week that the three-part, Carlos Armella-directed account jeopardizes Penn’s safety by hinting the actor aided the Department of Justice in their January 8, 2016 capture of the notorious drug dealer. The next day, Rolling Stone published Penn’s 10,000-word chronicle of he and del Castillo’s trip.

“Blood will be on [Netflix’s] hands if this film causes bodily harm,” wrote Boutrous. In a separate, October 14 letter to the lawyer of del Castillo’s co-executive producer, David Broome, Boutrous wrote, “It is profoundly disappointing that Netflix...

Netflix has recruited another experienced programming executive from traditional media. Simran Sethi, most recently Svp of Scripted Development at Freeform, is going to the Internet network as a Creative Executive for India in the International Originals Production Group, reporting to executive Erika North. Sethi will be based in the Los Angeles office. The group, lead by Erik Barmack, has produced series for Brazil (3%), Mexico (Club de Cuervos, Ingobernable starring…...