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Photo: Bloomberg – Gabby Jones
In the middle of a farm six hours away from Bogotá is the largest production in the history of Netflix in Latin America. There are 54 square kilometers of sets, tents and stages, and includes an impressive reproduction of Macondo, the magical fictional city in which Gabriel García Márquez’s masterpiece takes place, ““One hundred years of solitude”.
Netflix is investing approximately $50 million to adapt the novel to film for the first time and has just released a trailer that gives a taste of what’s to come. “In recent years, Netflix has made a big bet, in a good way,” said Alex García López.
“One Hundred Years of Solitude” is one of several local-language Netflix productions in Latin America. In Brazil, inspired by the success of his franchise “Drive to Survive”, The streaming giant is producing a series about legendary Formula One driver Ayrton Senna. In Argentina he works on the adaptation of the popular graphic novel ““The Eternaut”. And in Mexico he films the movie “Pedro Paramo”, based on the iconic book by Juan Rulfo.
At first glance it might seem that Netflix is seeking to emulate the global success of the “Squid Game”, the survival drama series that placed South Korea at the center of the company’s global expansion. But company executives insist that the priority is rather a local success that wins hearts and minds in those countries.
“If something we do for a specific market is not special and successful for our subscribers in that country, then, from a creative point of view, we missed the mark,” says Francisco Ramos, who oversees Netflix’s Latin American content. “The more precise and successful a local creation is, the more it resonates outside its territory.”
Netflix’s first foray into Latin America was in 2011. The company was looking for new viewers outside the US and opened offices for the region in Mexico City in 2015. One of its first hits in Spanish was the comedy drama “Crow Club”, filmed in Mexico and broadcast in 2015. Then came ““Narcos” that same year, an English-Spanish hybrid about drug trafficking in Colombia. It was a global success, but there were people in Colombia who said it perpetuated unfair stereotypes.
Things have changed. Now many Colombians declared their enthusiasm with “One hundred years of solitude one of the most well-known and revered books in the region. García Márquez is considered one of the greatest writers of the 20th century and part of Colombia’s cultural heritage. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982, largely for that novel.. He died in 2014 in Mexico City.
Netflix attracts viewers from around the world, although its biggest untapped markets are outside the US. It already has almost 270 million subscribers and is looking to add more eyes. In the first quarter it added 9.33 million additional subscribers, although it also warned of lower growth in the current quarter.
Latin America is a market with a total of 700 million viewers, but competition from local networks such as Globo and TelevisaUnivision is tough. And, of course, American rivals such as Max, Disney+, Apple TV and Amazon are trying to close Netflix’s enormous lead.
Part of that advantage is attributable to the increased investments Netflix has made in foreign content, not only in Latin America and South Korea, but also in Europe with hits like “The Crown and ““Lupin”. Bella Bajaria, who oversees Netflix content globally, says big networks and studios have focused too much on domestic audiences. “We are a global service,” says Bajaria. “The goal is to invest in local narratives and without a ‘Western lens’.”
But there is a famous maxim in show business: “Nobody knows anything.” Even in the age of algorithms, success is never guaranteed.
