Sony’s El Mariachi hits the Middle East

Middle Eastern broadcaster MBC has acquired Sony Pictures Televison’s El Mariachi, the Latin drama based on the Robert Rodriguez movie of the same name.

The pan-regional free-to-air broadcaster will show the 71-part drama on its MBC Action channel next year.

El Mariachi is produced by SPT-backed Colombian prodco Teleset, which also makes the Spanish language version of Breaking Bad, Metastasis. It follows a young mariachi musician who is mistaken for a legendary fugitive and inadvertently becomes involved in a war with the drug cartels. He is then unjustly imprisoned, before escaping and setting out for revenge.

Filmed on location in Mexico, the series goes out on the AXN cable channel throughout Latin America. In the US it is on the Mundo Fox Hispanic cable channel.

“While El Mariachi is especially relevant to a Latin American audience, there is a style and sensibility to this series and these characters that will also resonate with Middle Eastern viewers,” says Ziad Yaghi, vice president, distribution, Middle East and Turkey for Sony Pictures Television.

Rupert Morling, senior channel manager, MBC Action, added: “With its fast pace and gripping storyline, El Mariachi will fit in very nicely with the rest of our content, which includes the best of TV from around the world.”