Netflix pins Pina to overall deal

SVoD giant Netflix has agreed an exclusive overall deal with Álex Pina, the creator of its international heist drama La Casa de Papel (Money Heist).

Álex Pina

Pina will produce new series and projects through his Vancouver Media banner exclusively for the streamer.

Production of the third season of Money Heist is underway for a 2019 debut and Pina is currently developing Sky Rojo, a female-led action drama that will begin production next year.

The deal will aim to capitalise on the global success of Money Heist, which became Netflix’s most watched non-English-language series ever in the first quarter of 2018, surpassing standout series including Narcos and Dark.

Earlier this year Pina told C21’s Drama Quarterly magazine that his ambition for Money Heist was to create a “frantic” TV show.

Erik Barmack, VP of international originals, said of the new deal that Netflix had “full confidence” that Pina would “continue to break boundaries” in the future.

In May, Barmack name-checked La Casa de Papel as a leading example of the streamer’s policy for continuing to invest in foreign-language shows.

“The notion that in order for something to travel it has to be in English, or have a situation where you have the cop from France meeting the cop from Germany as a way to aggregate an audience, is not proven to be as successful for us as doing the most local, authentic story in that market,” he told delegates at C21’s Drama Summit West.

Besides La Casa de Papel, Pina is the creator of popular Spanish series including Antena 3 and, latterly, Fox Networks Group España’s prison drama Vis a Vis (Locked Up), sci-fi show El Barco (The Ship) and comedy drama Los Hombres de Paco (Paco’s Men).

The agreement comes soon after Netflix announced its latest international production, legal thriller The Faction.