“Narcos” producer Gaumont USA, the L.A. outpost of French Gaumont, behind “Lupin,” is developing two new titles with “La Reina del Sur” star Kate del Castillo’s L.A.-based Cholowood, as well as a buddy comedy led by “How to Get Away With Murder” star Karla Souza.
Del Castillo and Cholowood are advancing on “Point Blank,” an action thriller penned by Alexandro Aldrete (“House of Flowers”) and to be directed by Salvador Espinosa (“Harina” “Club of Crows”).
In a second title, again targeting the Mexican market, Noé Santillán-López who broke out with “Gift Table,” the only local movie to top Mexican box office charts this year – is on board to direct buddy comedy “La Chef,” written by U.S.-American Emma Ramos, an actress (“In the Summers”) and writer (“¡Dora!”).
Del Castillo will not only co-produce the two movies but star in both, said Christian Gabela, Gaumont USA SVP Creative Affairs and as a producer, Head of US Latino, Latin America and Spain.
Outside the Cholowood-Gaumont USA deal, also for the Mexican market Karla Souza will topline “Las Wannabes,” a buddy-comedy penned by María Hinojos “Mirreyes Contra Gódinez,” “Cindy la Regia”),Gaumont USA is also teaming with a streaming service to develop “Rumba Therapy,” a feel-good comedy.
In further new projects, Gaumont USA is co-producing “Me Engana Que Eu Gosto ” written by Patricia Corso (“Oxygen Masks Will Not Drop Automatically”), directed by Pedro Amorim (“Slam”) and produced by Brazil’s Coiote. It is also advancing on “D_LUX” with top Brazilian VOD player Globoplay, prodco Ventre, behind Carlos Saldanha’s upcoming “100 Days,” and leading Brazilian producer Conspiraçao, which joined Globoplay to produce Walter Salles’ Academy Award winner “I’m Still Here.” The series turns on the rise and fall of Brazil’s charismatic high-fashion icon Eliana Tranchesi. It is written by Giuliano Cedroni, Elena Soarez, Mariana Trench Bastos, and Pedro Perazzo.
Gaumont USA is also developing another true-crime series with HBO Max.
In Spain, Gaumont is working on buddy comedy movie “Brats” with Araceli Álvarez de Sotomayor (“Nails,” “Alpha Males,” “La que se avecina”) and Javier Aguado, who are also adapting for Spain a highly successful Gaumont Germany series “Die Wespe.”
Also targeting the Spanish market, Gaumont USA is partnering with Argentinian writer-directors Mariano Cohn and Gaston Duprat on an adaptation of Argentinian novel “Instructions on How to Rob a Supermarket,” by Haydu Kowski. Cohn and Duprat saw large success with Spanish movie “Official Competition,” starring Penélope Cruz, Antonio Banderas and Oscar Martínez.
“Spain is very attractive market because of its volume. Netflix has placed a great deal of importance in Spain in infrastructure such as its European Production Hub in Tres Cantos, Madrid and its volume of projects,” said Gabela. It’s also an attractive place to produce because of all the incentives. So it’s a territory where there’s a high demand for wholly-owned projects and the ability to take the independent and licensing route.”
Building on ‘Narcos’
The multiple new title announcements – and there are many more – come on the eve of Iberseries & Platino Industria where Gaumont CEO and owner Sidonie Dumas will deliver a keynote on Sept. 30, I&PI’s opening day.
News of these and other titles comes as Gaumont turns 130 this year. “Even though we don’t live in nostalgia, we’re very proud about being known as the oldest studio in the world,” Gaumont USA President Nicolás Atlan told Variety.
This year also marks the 10-year anniversary of the premiere of “Narcos,” Gaumont USA’s first Latin America-set production for the streaming era, which opened up a new age in modern TV, underscoring early in Netflix history the ability of Gaumont and Colombia’s Dynamo to make a premium, large canvas and partly non-English language title which could be seen the world over.
Of far more advanced Gaumont USA shows and movies, produced over the last 24 months, Lucía Puenzo and Nicolás Puenzo’s “Futuro Desierto” – a six-episode near-future psychological thriller produced for Paramount and starring Chema Yazpik, Andres Parra, Souza and Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey – will bow soon on Netflix.
Starring Del Castillo and Diana Bovio (“They Came at Night”), comedy “The Biggest Fan” (“La Más Fan”), a Hollywood cancellation culture satire, premiered worldwide on Netflix earlier this year.
Headed by Diego Luna, well on Hollywood’s radar after “Avatar” and hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live! for four nights, shooting has just wrapped on “Mexico 86,” a darkly humored drama on Mexico’s long-shot but successful bid to organize the 1986 soccer World Cup. It is produced by Gaumont USA for Netflix and written and directed by Gabriel Ripstein (“An Unknown Enemy”). Release will be timed to coincide with the 2025 World Cup, taking place in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. It marks Luna’s first big splashy live action movie in his native Mexico since 2008’s “Rudo & Cursi.”
Powering Into IP
The project also serve to underscore now well-consolidated and flourishing growth strategies at Gaumont USA.
“‘Narcos’ was first series in Spanish and in English and a breakthrough for the market,” said Atlan.
“It also proved how important Latin America and Spain is for Gaumont. Since then, we have worked to develop the big Spanish-language and Brazilian markets,” Atlan added.
“At the beginning, we tried to go everywhere but from hiring Christian [Gabela], we’ve focused on Mexico, Spain and Brazil and have been very successful, making since the inception of ‘Narcos,’ eight TV series seasons and two movies,” he said. Those seasons take in three of both “Narcos” in Colombia” (2015-18) and “Narcos; Mexico” (2018-21) and two of “El Presidente,” a first produced primarily in Chile (2020) and a second for Amazon Brazil (2022).
“It’s a great achievement of ours as a European company with an office based in Los Angeles to be able to break into these territories in the fashion that we’ve been able to,” said Gabela.
Gaumont USA continues to work with the talent pool it has created. One strategy, however, has evolved. “Of late, we’ve been utilizing pre-existing IP as the best avenue to get shows and films made,” Gabela told Variety. “That pre-existing IP is both internal, coming from Gaumont’s film and television library, adapted for Mexico, Spain or Brazil, or external, using third party pre-existing IP to adapt whether books or the inspiration of real events and real people stories.”
First fruit of this strategy was “The Biggest Fan” sourced from a Gaumont property “J’adore ce que vous faites.” “Point Blank” adapts Fred Cavayé’s 2010 classic, starring Gilles Lellouche in an 80-minute sprint to save his adducted wife from execution. “It’s very much on brand for Kate del Castillo,” Gabela noted.
“La Chef” is a makeover of 2014 Jean Reno-led sleeper “Comme un chef” but reimagined for a different culinary culture. Souza’s movie reversions “Les Vedettes” a Gaumont 2022 buddy movie. “Me Engana Que Eu Gosto” is the Brazilian adaptation of Gaumont’s French title “La doublure.”
Gaumont USA is also in exploratory conversations with an important Brazilian player about adapting a slate of its prize titles specifically for the Brazilian market, Gabela added.
The Bigger Picture
Following cutbacks by U.S studios and 2023 Hollywood strikes, a production sector which exploded in peak TV is now chasing a 75% peak TV market, Ampere Analysis’ Guy Bisson has observed. “In 2019, 2020, there were eight streamers. Now [for Chile] there’s 1.6,” Fábula’s Juan de Dios Larráin observed at Sanfic.
To execute its game plan, Gaumont can look, however, to several tailwinds. Data shows key services such as Netflix growing its series activity in Latin America following the strikes, which hit second half of 2023. Also, “we are absolutely seeing that acquisitions are filling the gaps left by reduced investment in originals for Netflix and particularly first-run originals,” Bisson observed.
Seven in 2023, Netflix movie commissions rose to 13 in 2024 and six in the first half of 2025, according to Ampere Analysis.
Gabela concurred. “Streaming services in Mexico are more active and have bigger slates. An opportunity has also opened in the last few years for licensing, particularly on movies. The appetite for volume might be the same, though the mix, which used to be heavily weighted towards original and fully-financed projects by the streamers, is now both fully-financed and licensed movies.”
Windowing is also now prevalent. On Gaumont USA’s Mexico slate, “we’re exploring both taking some titles directly to streamers and doing a buyout model, which has been the predominant model for the last 10-12 years.” Gabela said. “Also, we’re doing now more licensing models where we’re basically just license specific territories, windows and time periods to streamers and retain other rights, including theatrical rights.”
Bringing big stars to the table, Gaumont USA also enjoys a tried and tested relationship with streaming services.
“Gaumont has an amazing relationship worldwide with Netflix. Think ‘Lupin’ and movies in France and ‘Barbarians’ in Germany. The relationship with Amazon is the same,” Atlan said. “There is a strong relationship with the streamers that we’ve been working on for a very, very long time,” he added.
“We have four active developments currently set up with four different streamers across Mexico, Brazil and the U.S.-Mexico, which is a cross-border project,” Gabela noted.
Gaumont USA is also looking to co-produce movies with local partners which would bring a sensibility regarding the local market.
“On films, it’s not a case of our doing them 100% ourselves. We would do them with partners, which can either be strategic producing partners or financing partners,” said Atlan. “People come to us for the great wealth of IP that we can adapt, specifically features. The movie model is Mexican films for Mexico, Spain for Spain, Brazil for Brazil.”
“Our aim is to partner with the best writers, directors, actors, talent and producers in each of those countries, sharing IPs, whether a book or titles from our catalog. And we go in in a very nimble way.” Atlan concluded.