Netflix spent $200 million in 2020 to produce content in Mexico, an amount expected to increase this year, and has also invested significantly in Spain.
The following month Univision acquired Grupo Televisa’s content and media assets, which were valued at $4.8 billion, in a move to create a Spanish-language supergiant as competition ramps up.
Miami-based Hemisphere in April paid Lionsgate $124 million for the 75% of Pantaya it did not already own, with the aim of growing it by investing in content.
“There’s so much more we can do, and the opportunity is so much greater,” Hemisphere CEO Alan Sokol said in an interview after the deal.
It’s easy to see why streamers and studios see a gold mine.
Moctesuma Esparza, producer of the 1997 film “Selena,” built his Pasadena-based theater chain Maya Cinemas with a strategy to serve underscreened neighborhoods, including working-class areas dominated by Latinos.
The crime series “Money Heist” earned a modest audience when it originally ran on Spanish TV, said creator Álex Pina.
“These days, viewers often feel that series repeat themselves,” he wrote in an email.
Hispanic “market,” for example, is really a fragmented set of audiences, including Cuban Americans in Miami and Mexican Americans in Los Angeles, that encompass a multitude of cultural touchstones and sensibilities.
audiences for whom Spanish is their primary language, has content deals with the major studios in Mexico and has had some success with originals, such as the sexually provocative dramedy series “El Juego de las Llaves,” which gets its second season this fall.
Yet the streaming service, which had $46 million in revenue last year, hasn’t reached huge subscriber numbers.
“Netflix has a much bigger checkbook than we do, but we are very focused on what we do,” Sokol said.
Ryan Faughnder is a film business reporter for the Los Angeles Times’ Company Town and the host of the entertainment business newsletter The Wide Shot.