Spanish Female Showrunners Insights: Amaya Muruzabal (Prime Video’s ‘Reina Roja’)

Amaya Muruzabal (Source: J.C. Cordovilla, Diario de Navarra)

Spanish scripted shows are finding new audiences around the world. In this new series of articles, TBI speaks to some of the showrunners behind the country’s most acclaimed series, starting today with Amaya Muruzabal, who has recently wrapped Prime Video’s Reina Roja.

We’ve seen streamers and broadcasters cutting spending around the world over the last year, how has this affected Spain’s scripted sector from your perspective?

Massive competition between streamers and the pandemic scenario generated the conditions for a never-seen-before volume of TV production, but we all knew that it was just a phase. Broadcasters cutting spending is going to deeply affect all of us because now there are too many of us trying to make TV, gatekeepers feel unsure about trends and the future, and decision makers think in global and local terms at the same time and that is not easy.

More shows that fight to make this industry sustainable will return: they will slightly depart from cinematic parameters to underline traditional TV parameters, making script writing even more important

Nonetheless, I feel these are logic consequences of truly globalised TV and we cannot be afraid of this because it is simply the work we have chosen. I think we need to prepare for the worst but hoping for the best and knowing that this business is cyclic.

Spain is, in terms of volume, the second producer of series in Europe, but seventh in coproductions. We need to transform this changing scenario in an opportunity to coproduce more, building non-exclusive financing models, opening to various ways to collaborate at the same time with diverse players, measuring what I feel key: relationships based on talent in diverse complimentary areas to assure excellence (and not less than excellence) in productions that are going to be global.

Tell us about your latest show and what makes it unique.

I have just finished my work as a showrunner on Reina Roja (Red Queen), the adaptation of the same title best-selling novel by Juan Gómez-Jurado, for Prime Video. I feel Spain’s Amazon originals team and the author himself have allowed us to push the literary phenomenon to the next level, letting us show what the novel hides somehow: the main character’s incredible mind (Antonia Scott is the cleverest person in the world) and an effervescent thriller that leaves a psychologist dark approach behind to take place under Madrid’s blue sky in a lively city.

If you could wish for one thing to change within the Spanish scripted industry, what would it be?
I would like to firmly build the bridge between Spanish content and Latin American content. I have lived and worked in Mexico, where I created series such as Hernan, Coyotl along with Genaro Quiroga, and the adaptation of Superstore (Supertitlan) with César Rodríguez, Joserra Zúñiga and Paula Rendón.

La Mesias

What I want is just not creating a model to exchange content among Spanish speaking countries, but to offer it to the world. I believe in the content we can deliver in Spanish because I believe in Latin coolness. Why can’t we do what music industry has already achieved? This is the direction I am moving towards after finishing Reina Roja with a new venture soon to be announced.

How have budgets changed over the past year and what are you expecting in 2024?

2018 and 2019 were the golden years for us. We got quite decent budgets to compete in terms of production with territories much more consolidated in financing. I have got the feeling that in Spain budgets grew as a whole from medium to high, but in Lat Am it was divided in a two-pace schedule (low-medium/low vs. high/super high budgets).

Now we have to get back to the roots, fight for and find the medium/medium high budget spectrum that makes the business feasible. Overall, we need to know how to financially build a model and expect less budgets coming from Originals side.

What do you expect the key trend to be in 2024 in terms of the types of shows being commissioned?
This will be the year that will consolidate the gap between trend-setters and industry-followers, and I want to underline that both strategies are necessary and good. Trend-setters are the ones who dare to, creators from whom we can expect everything.

On the other hand, more shows that fight to make this industry sustainable will return: they will slightly depart from cinematic parameters to underline traditional TV parameters, making script writing even more important. Necessarily, they will be stories with an interest in human matters and I think that dramedy and dramatic comedy will strongly come back.

What has been your favourite Spanish-language show of the past 12 months?
El Amor Después Del Amor (Love After Music) on Netflix and La Mesías on Movistar Plus+. I found Love After Music healing. This Argentinian hit revolves the idea of biopic. Instead of showing an overwhelming interest in the events of its main character’s life, song-writer and front man Fito Páez, it is the story of creativity itself: how events in life, even the most tragical, are transformed into creation, and therefore, into love. Besides this, it is the best emotional story of Argentinian society I have ever seen. For me, in particular, it has been the starting point for a creative collaboration with its showrunner, Juan Pablo Kolojdziej. In terms of La Mesías, it is just amazing, a truly authorial series that goes straight to the audience’s hearts while blowing minds, which is something very difficult to achieve.

Tell us about one of your passion projects that you would love or make but which is yet to be greenlit.
Some years ago I wrote a Pan-European project rooted in Spain and with a Latin element that match in such a natural, thrilling and funny way that became my favourite project. I am repolishing it to enthusiastically pitch it.

For those looking to learn more about the latest trends in Spanish scripted, check out the articles below:

Spanish Female Showrunners Insights: Laura Sarmiento (Netflix’s ‘El Cuerpo En llamas’)
Spanish Female Showrunners Insights: Tatiana Rodriguez (TVE’s ‘La Ley Del Mar’)
Spanish Female Showrunners Insights: Gema R. Neira (Netflix’s ‘El Caso Asunta’)