The Mediapro Studio today presented in Cannes the company's principal investments to ensure its international consolidation, in addition to taking stock of the creative talent, growth and expansion in recent years. "We want to maintain and grow our positioning to continue being a relevant player in the international market," CEO of The Mediapro Studios Laura Fernandez Espeso said.
Fernandez Espeso, highlighted the Studio’s key priorities on the roadmap to sustain growth during the Media Mastermind Keynote held today at Mipcom, highlighting the incorporation of new direct creative talent, through exclusive and non-exclusive agreements, and also indirect talent through the acquisition of companies such as the most recent Cimarrón: a Latin American production company as the most relevant priorities. "Another of our most outstanding assets is neutrality: not having a window is a strength because it makes us the ideal ally for our clients in any possible business model, whether they are co-productions, acquisitions, licenses, alliances with third parties, etc," Fernandez states.
In terms of strategic alliances, Fernandez highlighted the joint venture between The Mediapro Studio and Turkish giant Medyapim, which is developing the adaptation of Feriha's Secret; the content distribution agreement with the Belgian label Be-Entertainment, from which the Studio has already adapted the formats "El Musical de tu vida" and "Finder$ Keeper$" (Esta casa es una mina) for the Spanish market, and the launch of "Moonlyon," Penélope Cruz's production company. "One of our objectives is to expand in the Anglo market for which we have very specific plans to increase our speed of implementation in the US," Fernandez Espeso said. "We are not going to reduce our production in Spanish, which will continue as strong as it has been until now."
In production, Laura Fernandez Espeso confirmed the Studio’s commitment to non-fiction content, with the production of 75 shows each year, including documentaries, gameshows, news reports and live comedy programs, with a presence both on free-to-air television and for streaming platforms, with great international projection. In Fiction, the Studio boasts a highly consolidated trajectory with the annual production of twenty series, both originals and co-productions, and this year’s highlights include Mano de hierro for Netflix; Romancero, premiering November 3 on Prime Video; and comedy with overtones of horror El otro lado, premiering on November 23 on Movistar Plus+. Other novelties from the slate include new comedy proposals from Diego San José and Borja Cobeaga, as well as productions in Latin America such as Primate and Las Bravas, both in their second seasons, and Consuelo, a new series co-produced with VIX.
Laura Fernandez Espeso also referred to the Studio's main international franchise, the action thriller "The Head," confirming that filming on the third installment of the series is set to get underway in late November. Ran Tellem, Director of International Content Development at The MediaPro Studio, returns as showrunner, with Jorge Dorado back in the director’s chair and John Lynch will leading the cast as biologist Arthur Wilde, alongside Katharine O'Donnelly and Olivia Morris. The series will bring together international actors from different nationalities, a hallmark of both previous seasons.
As a novelty, the third season of "The Head" will feature a team of international writers, led by Ran Tellem, with names including director screenwriter tandem of Teresa de Pelegrí and Dominic Harari, British writer Rachel Kilfeather, American screenwriter and actress Martine Moore and British writer Pearse Lehane. Another novelty is the filming location as one of the principal trademarks of this now successful and ambitious franchise has been to confine the protagonists in a series of hostile, isolated and remote environments, from where escape is impossible. In the first season, an international station in Antarctica; in the second, a ship at Point Nemo, the furthest place from the mainland in the middle of the Pacific, and in the third, the Sahara Desert, an area known as Bir Tawil, located on the border between Egypt and Sudan, which remains the only territory on the planet considered 'no man's land'. A place without government or law, the perfect place to carry out an investigation for which there are no rules and where the plot of the new episodes will begin. The series will be filmed in Tenerife and Almeria, as well as in Madrid.