The executive spoke with ttvnews at Content Americas about the success of Max’s fiction and the platform’s plans to develop a potential second season.
*By Luis Cabrera, Ana Carreira and Fernando Moreno, from Miami, USA
One of the biggest premieres of Max and Telefe last year, and which has already found other screens in Latin America, Margarita, the spin-off of the beloved series Floricienta, has established itself as a resounding success in the region.
“The experience of Margarita was incredible. It was a project that we dreamed of together more than four years ago,” began in a conversation with ttvnews Tomás Yankelevich, former WBD and currently partner of Cris Morena in Otro Mundo, with whom he created the successful spinoff.
“At that time I was managing the content in Latam for what was Warner Media, the content for HBO Max. We were looking for content for the whole family and we considered that Floricienta had worked incredibly well. And we wanted to repeat that,” revealed the executive. “Talking to her (Cris), I told her ‘I want something like Floricienta’. And she remembered the triplets that were born at the end and Margarita. And I said, ‘let’s go from there’,” he recalled.
The series premiered as a resounding success on Max and then on Telefe with more than 38% share, which allowed the platform to close sales to broadcast TV channels in Argentina, Panama, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Uruguay, Bolivia, Venezuela, Paraguay and Colombia.
“We are very happy beyond the success on Max throughout Latam, that broadcat television has backed us,” said Yankelevich. “Having filmed it in Uruguay, we are now very excited about the fact that they are about to launch it on Teledoce, happy with what could happen there. And having recorded it in Uruguay was a pleasure, having worked with the people at Cimarrón. We learned from each other. That convergence is seen in the result of the content.”
And in the face of this success, it is not surprising that a second season is on the horizon. “Hopefully, we are working on that, on the second part,” revealed the executive. “We have definitely started writing it. We are negotiating with Max, because it really went very well for him, but we are finalizing details to achieve a good deal for both parties. Hopefully it will happen.”
“In principle, the focus this year will be on the shows. If there is a second season, we will begin production,” he concluded.
