The companies met in Madrid, Spain, to present their new series Sin límites, which will tell the story of the first journey around the world, with a budget of at least 20 million euros.
In late 2019, TVE announced it was working on a series about the first journey around the world, an event which will have taken place 500 years ago in 2022. And a few days ago, it was revealed that the series will be titled Sin límites and be co-produced with Amazon prime Video.
And now, TVE and Amazon met in Madrid to present the first details about the ambitious series, which will be four episodes long and have a budget of no less than 20 million euros.
Produced by Mono Films and Kilima Media, the series was written by Patxi Amezcua and will be directed by British director, Simon West, known for action and adventure movies like Con Air, Lara Croft:Tomb Raider or The General’s Daughter.
Sin límites will be an action and adventure series, in which entertainment will be the main goal.
“I won’t describe Sin límites as a historic series, because that sounds boring. It’s an action and adventure story. Proof of this is who we chose as its director. Simon West is a phenomenon with an infinite talent for action and adventure, which makes me feel at ease about the end result”, Miguel Menéndez de Zubillaga, producer of the series from Mono Films, said to ttvnews.
“At the end of the day we will tell the story of the men who ventured into the unknown, who set sail knowing they were probably not going to make it back -and most of them didn’t-, so it’s an epic story of adventure and action, human emotion and empathy,” he added.
Fernando López Puig, director of Content and Networks at RTVE, added: “Sin límites is a road movie, a monumental road movie, but it’s also a story of feelings and character evolution, as they live through this adventure and establish a series of relationships, both positive and negative, with each other and their surroundings.”
“But above all, we want it to be a story of adventure, epic, loaded with romance, with discovery, with struggles to be faces and creating a human bond with a group of people to meet a goal”, he added.
The story, which will be told in four episodes, will go through the historic feat of Fernando de Magalles and Juan Sebastián Elcano, who left Spain on September 20, 1519 with five ships and 239 men, seeking to complete the first journey around the world. Although they did it, their arrival was on September 6, 1522 with only one ship and 18 men.
«We wanted to create an audiovisual product to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the first world tour. At first we thought of a movie, but then this was growing in dimension and having value in itself as a great plot to tell. That is why when Mono Films came with the project, it already had this closeness and high interest from Amazon,” he said about how the Fernando López Puig project was managed.
A Historic Budget that Stands to Grow
With 20 million euros, Sin límites will become the most expensive Spanish-language series to date, surpassing Hernan and El cid.
And according to the companies, the number stands to continue growing, since the project is open to new partners. As a matter of fact, a Russian producer is about to sign on.
“I don’t know if this is the most ambitious series, because I’m not sure, but the budgets we have is undeniable. We will tell the story with many resources, with a budget that I’ve never seen in a Spanish-language series begore, and we will be competing with international-level budgets, which is the goal”, said Miguel Menéndez de Zubillaga.
“The project is still open to new partners and there are two main opportunities: there are many territories showing interest in joining, which would add to the budget. And then there’s a major opportunity because any Spanish company that invests in this project could have a tax break due to the 500th anniversary,” he added.
“There are key countries in this story, such as Brazil, Argentina and Chile in Latin America, but also the Phillippines and Indonesia, which are important because a big part of the story took place there”.
The series will air in Spain on TVE and its platforms, as well as on Amazon Prime Video (with an exclusive four-month window on Amazon Prime Video, after which it will premiere on TVE in Spain).
Amazon will also air it as an Original in Latin America, the US and the UK.
Filming will begin in December 2020 with a cast that’s still TBD, but will combine familiar faces from all over the world, as well as new actors. It will spread across the Basque Country, the Canary Islands and the Pinewood studios of the Dominican Republic.
The plan is for it to be released in 2022.
