Spanish Scripted Indie Insights: Vancouver Media (Netflix’s ‘Berlin’)

Berlin (Source: Netflix)

Spanish drama is reaching new shores around the world but what do the producers behind these shows make of the industry & its prospects for the future?

In this new strand of articles ahead of NATPE Global and Content Americas, TBI hears from the owners of four major Spanish indies to get their takes on the business. Today, we hear from Álex Pina, CEO & executive producer at Vancouver Media.

Are you expecting the coming year to offer more opportunities than 2023 or fewer? Why?

On paper, 2024 looks like a great year for us, with two new series coming out. Berlin is already in the can and it had its premiere at the end of 2023 but will continue to run into 2024: it is a spin-off from Money Heist (aka La Casa de Papel). Its reception is very important for us. We have changed the genre, we have changed the tone, we have raised the series’ comedy side by several notches, we have conceived a different universe and DNA so it is important to see how the viewers react.

This series doesn’t have the angst, claustrophobia or guns of Money Heist, but it does maintain the identity and coherence with respect to the character of Berlin, an ambiguous dandy, capable of the best and the worst, and in that respect, it is very important to test the audience.

Alex Pina (Credit: Tamara Arranz)

In 2024 we are also shooting a new and complex series, The Bunker, once again a hybrid of genres and with a very complicated shooting schedule, so 2024 will hopefully be a good year.

What do you foresee as the biggest challenge for your business in 2024?

The biggest challenge for my company, and for the industry as a whole, is to find out whether the market is becoming saturated. Whether the fiction bubble will continue to inflate or it is alternatively balancing out.

Times are complicated due to the increasing amount of platforms, of shows, of actors, of production companies. At any moment a correction may take place, so the biggest challenges right now are to position ourselves with a fiction of quality that has its own identity, its own DNA. And, as always happens in the audiovisual industry, survival is ultimately up to Darwin’s law. I think we need to maintain our unique identity above all the rest. That is Vancouver’s aspiration.

Budgets seem to be stagnating in Spain but also globally. How are you planning to navigate this?

Budgets, like everything else, follow trends. We have enjoyed a period of prosperity, when we could afford higher budgets. Now it’s time for a correction.

Money Heist (Source: Netflix)

The answer to the budget correction is always creativity: if you can’t afford to set gas stations on fire, you have to scratch your head and create an entertainment much more emotional, giving priority to comedy against action. The lower the budget, the more ingenuity and creativity.

Where is the biggest opportunity for growth for your business this year?

Our biggest business opportunity, or rather growth opportunity, relies on how the spin-off is received, how the Money Heist universe is accepted. We stopped shooting Money Heist in its fifth season when the series was at its peak. We decided not to do another part at that time, or a new heist, and we really made that decision because the series was at its peak.

The fifth season got the highest rating of them all, so it’d have been easy to shoot seasons six and seven, but we chose not to do them at that point, to stop the franchise and instead come back with a spin-off. It is now a good time to find out if the audience still wants it and whatever happens will have an important effect on our growth.

What are the key events for your business this year?

For us the global reception of Spanish fiction is still key. It has given us a lot of power, a lot of energy. It has given us a position and a lot of visibility in many countries, places that wouldn’t look our way before, from Asia to Lat Am.

Spanish fiction is now much more watched. We have become a point of reference. Therefore, we must insist on making a fiction of quality and with its own identity, so that we can provide entertainment to very diverse idiosyncrasies, from Asia to Lat Am to the US. And I believe that this is pivotal for the global future of our fiction.