20 (Continued from Cover) ond half of this year, Netflix has been commissioning more productions in key markets. In August, in Argentina, for example, Netflix announced its most robust line-up of productions in that country: Nine series and 10 movies. Ninety-five percent of all titles will be ready to premiere or are in production for the 20242025 season. In September, Netflix production managers met with some of Argentina’s producers, directors, actors, and screenwriters to define more projects for the 2026-2027 season. In Colombia, in September, Netflix formalized the production of an additional season of hit Perfil Falso, and a documentary on the football player James Rodríguez. All are scheduled to reach TV screens in 2025. In July, Netflix secured a third season for the series La primera vez, making it the first Colombian original to reach a third season on its streaming service. In Mexico, the series Pedro Páramo and El secreto del río debuted in October. Earlier, in September, it premiered the movie Technoboys. In Brazil, Netflix confirmed a November premiere of the miniseries Senna, which will tell the story of Ayrton Senna, one of the greatest local historical idols and an icon of world motorsports. In Chile, El lugar de la otra, the first fiction feature film from Maite Alberdi, premiered in September. At the Walt Disney Company, the Latin American strategy of merging Star+ into a single offering, Disney+, has led the company to revive its production plans. Following the merger, the month of June saw on Disney+ the premiere of the reboot of the Colombian hit Pedro el escamoso, a third season of the Argentine series El encargado, and the fifth season of the Brazilian drama series Impuros. The remainder of the year will see the second season of the reality series Los Montaner, and several Argentine projects such as the drama series Camaleón, el pasado no cambia, the docuseries Argentina ‘78, the psychological thriller La voz ausente, and the comedy-drama series El mejor infarto de mi vida. Opening the list of 2025 productions, the Argentine series Lost Girl stands out, with a return to acting for singer Tini Stoessel. In Brazil, in the second half of the year, Disney+ premiered projects entirely made in that country, such as the drama series Vidas Bandidas, the musical series O Som e a Sílaba, and the documentary series Guga por Kuerten, about the most famous Brazilian tennis player, and the documentary series Volta Priscila, about the much-publicized disappearance of Priscila Belfort. More recently, the company presented the romantic comedy Amor da minha vida, scheduled for release at the end of the year. After its exceptional Latin American commissions in the second half of 2023, Amazon Prime Video has scaled back its year-to-date in the region. Amazon’s Spanish-language bet was based on a record first half of the year for the original series Reina Roja, and the reality show Operación Triunfo. In July, at the “Prime Video Presents” event held in Madrid, it presented seven new projects to increase its Originals catalog, including the film Zeta, the scripted series Cochinas, three unscripted titles: Cómo cazar a un monstruo, Medina: El estafador de famosos, and Infiltrada en el búnker. Plus, the documentary La Joia: Bad Gyal, and the series Punto Nemo. Also in July, Amazon Prime Video premiered the Colombian Betty La Fea, The Story Continues, sequel to the most famous telenovela in history, produced by RCN in Colombia. In the same month, Amazon commissioned the production of a new original series in Chile, The House of the Spirits, based on the popular novel by Isabel Allende. The series will be filmed entirely in Spanish, set in Chile, and produced by FilmNation. In September, the streamer launched the second season of the Argentine comedy series Porno y Helado. In Mexico, the series El Gato, commissioned by Prime Video in February, is already in full production. The creation, based on the comic book series El Gato Negro, will debut in 2025. November will see the premiere of another Amazon Original, the Mexican series Every Minute Counts, co-produced by Amazon Studios and Traziende Films, about the earthquake that affected Mexico in 1985. Warner Bros. Discovery’s situation is different than that of Netflix, Disney, and Amazon. According to a projection from Parrot Analytics, more spending cuts are to be expected in the short and medium term. Parrot predicted that without top-tier live sports from the U.S. (it lost the NBA rights), Warner’s Max will focus on its “bread and butter”: premium scripted content and the development of intellectual property inherited from Discovery. The reduction of its commissioning in Latin America is not encouraging: orders are few today and will probably remain so in the short term. Bonus fact: the few productions commissioned were hits on the Max platform. In the second half of the year, in August, the steaming service premiered the HBO Original miniseries City of God: The Fight Doesn’t Stop, produced by Brazil’s O2 Filmes, a sequel to the popular film. In September, it debuted the third season of the reality series Divina Comedia Mexico, produced entirely in Mexico. September also saw the spin-off of Floricienta, and the series Margarita, Cris Morena’s new modern fairy tale that premiered in Argentina. The 40 episodes have been exceeding all expectations in terms of audience. With its parent company involved in the largest industry M&A in recent years, Paramount Global has frozen its commissioning in the region for its Paramount+ platform. Maintaining its content portfolio in Argentina and Chile for the time being (and its two most successful broadcasters in each of those countries), its overall strategy would be to move away from localized international content. The sale to Skydance Media raises many questions for 2025 that are currently unanswered. Apple TV is ready to celebrate its fifth year of Apple TV+, which saw little action in Latin America in 2024. In the second half of the year, the streamer has premiered two productions commissioned in Mexico City, the medical drama Midnight Family, based on the award-winning documentary Familia de Medianoche, and the new crime drama, Women in Blue (Las Azules). In June, Apple TV+ premiered the third season of the bilingual comedy series Acapulco, produced in Puerto Vallarta. This series has already confirmed a fourth season that will premiere in 2025. As reported by Parrot Analytics when sifting through the last part of Apple TV+’s year, the platform is more interested in licensing programming from other studios, revising its compensation structure to better monetize its programming and having internal conversations about the level of advertising on the platform. TelevisaUnivision, the world’s leading Spanish-language television producer, has opted to focus almost all of its production for the U.S. Hispanic TV market, and for its streamer ViX abroad. It has stopped producing the vast majority of its titles in the United States, transferring these resources to Mexico, including unscripted content. The high costs of creating content in the United States opened up opportunities for the market with the largest Spanish-speaking viewers in the world. Telemundo, the other leading player among U.S. Hispanic TV viewers, has also concentrated almost all of its productions in Mexico. (By Omar Mendez, editor in chief of The Daily Television) Netflix premiered miniseries Senna in Brazil in November VIDEOAGE November 2024 LatAm Production
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