This Friday, July 10, Amazon Prime Video premiered The Pack (La jauría) in Latin America and Spain, Fremantle’s first Spanish-Language production. To find out more about the series and the company’s strategy in LatAm, ttvnews spoke to Christian Vesper, EVP of Global Drama at Fremantle.
In October of 2018, Fremantle made the surprising announcement of its first series in Spanish: The Pack (La jauría), a co-production with Fabula, Kapow and TVN, starring Chilean actress Daniela Vega (A Fantastic Woman).
Almost two years later, the series finally premiered this Friday, July 10 on Amazon Prime Video in Latin America and Spain. It was also already sold in Russia (Viasat), Poland, Greece, Malta and Turkey (Blue TV).
“For some time now, our leadership, starting with Jen Mullin, our CEO and Andrea Scrosati, our COO, noticed and talked about in the press, that it’s an area that Freemantle is really interested and in making an investment both in terms of time and effort, and in terms of production in Latin America. And that led to La jauría”, Christian Vesper, EVP of Global Drama at Fremantle, said to ttvnews.
“I am a huge fan of Pablo Larrain’s filmmaking and of his brother, and the productions they’ve been doing. I’ve been working for years to try and work with the Larrain brothers. And we were able to eventually get involved in La jauría and that led to a first look deal with Fábula,” he added.
This deal means La jauría will, in fact, be Fremantle’s first of many productions done in collaboration with Fábula.
The second project has already been announced: Talitha Kum, a female action series set in Mexico. “And we are in talks with HBO Max, Amazon, Apple, Starz and Pantaya for other projects,” he revealed.
“Pretty much everything Fábula has done so far throughout our deal that we’ve been involved with with them on has landed incredibly well in the market place. They are prolific, and they’ve yet, frankly, to bring me a project that I haven’t been excited about,” the executive said.
In addition, after striking the deal with Fábula, Fremantle signed Argentine executive Manuel Martí to lead all fiction operations for Fremantle Mexico and acquired a stake in the production company The Inmigrant, led by Camila Jimenez and Silvana Aguirre, known for their work in El Chapo.
“In the next few months, we’ll be announcing more shows, for sure. Deals take a long time to get to that place. And the networks are often very picky about how they announced projects, so we need to be respectful of that. But it’s been exciting,” Vesper said, revealing the company is working on more productions in Chile, Mexico and Colombia, in addition to El director, its first fiction in Spain.
The Pack, a Modern-Day Thriller
In regard to La jauría, Vesper highlighted the series’ premium look and feel, and the amazing work done by Lucía Puenzo (XXY, Ingobernable), who directed all eight episodes with Nicolás Puenzo, Marialy Rivas and Sergio Castro.
“What’s great about the tone and the style is, they all brought real tension to it,” he said.
The series stars Daniela Vega (A Fantasic Woman), Antonia Zegers (Prófugos, The Club) and María Gracia Omegna (Joven y alocada), with Mariana Di Girolamo (Ema, Pituca sin lucas), Antonia Giesen (Ema, Inés del alma mía), Paula Luchsinger (Ema, Tranquilo papá), Alberto Guerra (The Lord of the Skies, Ingobernable), Marcelo Alonso (The Club) and Francisco Reyes (A Fantastic Woman).
It tells the story of a catholic school girl who goes missing and unknowingly becomes the center of a police investigation that exposes a deadly online game in which men are recruited to commit acts of violence against women, brought to light when the video of her own assault goes viral the day after she disappears.
It’s inspired by the real case of “La manada” in Spain.
“Even if you don’t care about any of that, you watch the show and it’s just an exciting thriller. Will they save the girl? Ultimately, will they be able to figure out where she is before she’s murdered?,” he said. “There’s so much going on. It is premium in that way, it has layers.”
Will there be a second season? According to the executive, the series was designed for that to be an option, so there could be another season if Amazon renews it.
