Movistar aims to become the largest producer of content in Spanish

Telefónica producirá cuatro proyectos propios este año, a los que se sumarán otras diez series en 2018, rodadas en su mayoría en ultra definición 4K.

El presidente de Telefónica España, Luis Miguel Gilpérez, ha presentado en Sevilla las líneas estratégicas de la propuesta de televisión de pago de Telefónica, coincidiendo con el inicio de rodaje de La Peste, una producción original en la que la compañía invertirá 10 millones de euros.

Gilpérez, president of Telefónica Spain, has highlighted the value that television has for the company's business strategy. "Our ambition is to become a television that reaches the heart. We want to create a reference television in which you can find everything you like, when you want and how you want. Television, together with fiber and mobile networks are the pillars of our strategy, having the best television proposal within Fusión allows us to incorporate a unique differentiating element into our convergent offer and provides additional value to our network," he noted.

Asked about the pay television market, Gilpérez commented that "Telefónica's commitment to pay television has energized a market that was stagnant, with an average penetration well below the European average. In Spain we are already at 33%, but we are still far from other countries, which makes us think that there is a long way to go. Our contribution to this growth is significant, since we have 3.7 million customers and a market share of 66%" and regarding the arrival of international competitors, he has clarified that "we do not play in the same league, we are not a vertical catalog of films and series, we are a platform that adds to the best content offering - more than 16,000 references of all categories and more than 660 serial titles - the best connectivity, the best technical functionalities and the greatest customer knowledge, four elements that no one else is capable of offering in the market."

Investment of 7o million euros

"Movistar+ will soon be the main hub for original content in Spanish," stated the president of Telefónica, adding that "we have decided to bet on our industry. We are going to have the best talent in our country to make quality series here with the quality of the best cinema." To support this statement, he has spoken of an investment in one year of 70 million euros in the production of new series.

A great challenge for Domingo Corral, director of Original Fiction at Movistar+. "Movistar+ already had the best catalog of foreign series but we wanted to go one step further with our own production in Spanish, local talent and local stories. Tell the reality here. To Fish It represents the level of ambition of Movistar+ in the field of original content production. We are not going to produce one or two series a year, there will be 10 Spanish series in 2018, a production effort unprecedented in any other paid service” and has announced the premiere in 2017 of four series starting in September: The Zone, Shame, The Plague and a new title not yet revealed.

An ambitious project

To Fish is a thriller in six 50' chapters that take place in the splendor of Seville in the 16th century during an outbreak of plague, coinciding with the beginning of the decline of one of the most important and richest cities of the time.

“To Fish It is an ambitious project in which we have the best talent in our country and meticulous to the maximum in terms of veracity and reconstruction of the period and the characters. In addition to the talent behind it, we loved the originality of the idea. We do not find similar references in any other series. To do it as it deserves, we have a budget of 10 million euros,” added Domingo Corral.

Movistar+'s big commitment to fiction with the collaboration of Atypical Films is an original idea by Alberto Rodríguez (winner of the Goya for Best Director for The minimal island) with a script by Rafael Cobos (winner of the Goya Award for Best Screenplay for The minimal island), will feature professionals with a brilliant cinematographic career rewarded with numerous awards such as the Goya Awards. Among them, Pepe Domínguez (art director); Pau Esteve (director of photography); Fernando García (costumes); Yolanda Piña (Hairdressing and Makeup), Juan Ventura (digital effects supervisor), Julio de la Rosa (Music), Manuela Ocón (production director) or José Manuel García Moyano, (post-production director).

José Antonio Félez, executive producer and director of Atypical Films, has provided more information about the dimension of this great production, “To Fish It is a complex machinery: a technical team of more than 200 professionals, 100 actors, 2,000 extras, more than 250 sequences, 130 locations... To tackle a production like this it is necessary to have great support, which Movistar + is providing us. For years, Alberto and I had been fantasizing about the idea of ​​making a film whose action would take place in the dazzling Seville of the 16th century. When almost two years ago Domingo Corral contacted me, interested in seeing if we could find an idea to make a series with Alberto, that dream began to become a reality.”

Alberto Rodríguez, director and co-writer of To Fish, added: "The most interesting thing about the series is seeing the Seville of the 16th century trying to make all the fiction coherent with the thinking of that time and not the 21st century. The characters behave as they would in that time and we do not judge them. They are the rules of a different time in which things were organized in a different way. In a way it is a walk through History at street level."

Filming begins on February 6 and will take place in 130 locations in Andalusia and Extremadura.