Beta Spain Announces Pacts on ‘Tamer,’ ‘Gallos’ Series, Builds U.S. and Latin American Bridges (EXCLUSIVE)

Beta Entertainment Spain is joining forces with Nicely Entertainment, the L.A.-based outfit run by former Gaumont executive Vanessa Shapiro, to produce the TV thriller series project “The Tamer.”

The project, about a serial killer who tames and trains other killers to take down more of their kind, has attached Spain’s Paco Torres (“El vuelo del tren”) as writer, director and showrunner, alongside Mexican director of photography Guillermo Navarro, who won an Academy Award for Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth.”

This deal marks an early incursion into the international TV drama production sector by Beta Entertainment Spain, the Madrid-based joint venture launched late last year by European film-TV giant Beta Film and Spanish producer Javier Pérez de Silva.

BES is conceived as a bridge into the U.S. and Latin American TV markets.

“Partnering with U.S. and Latin American companies was a top priority for us. COVID-19 has slowed everything down a bit and has changed our timing, but not our underlying strategy,” said BES co-CEO Javier Pérez de Silva.

Connecting to a major trend in the Spanish scripted TV production industry, which increasingly looks for financing on the other side of the Atlantic, BES has inked with top Spanish casting directors Yolanda Serrano and Eva Leira to build Red Bull-backed drama series “Gallos,” set in the Red Bull Batalla de Gallos, a 15-year-old global rap improv competition, targeting Latin youth audiences.

Scheduled to roll in 2021, the cast will be Latin, not just Spanish, with the series looking towards both markets, Pérez de Silva said.

Casting directors Serrano and Leira have turned many young Spanish thesps into stars working on TV dramas such as “La casa de papel,” “Elite,” “Toy Boy,” “La peste,” and “La unidad” and also on features such as Pedro Almodóvar’s “Pain and Glory” and local blockbuster “Spanish Affair.”

Beta Entertainment Spain is also teaming with Madrid-based Carcelén Talent, one of Spain’s top talent agencies, to bring together both Spanish content and talent to the U.S. and Latin America.

Run by Carmen Carcelén, Carcelén Talent’s high-profile Spanish actors take in “Jungle Cruise” and “Spanish Affair’s” Dani Rovira, Fernando Tejero (“My Heart Goes Boom!,” “La que se avecina”), Jesús Castro (“La Reina del Sur,” “El Niño”) and Mónica Cruz (“Mothers,” “Velvet Colección”).

Meanwhile, BES is advancing on the medical drama “The Secret Hospital,” a project made in partnership with Atresmedia Studios and Miguel Torrente’s Balance Media. The series focuses on a clandestine hospital for illegal immigrants in downtown Los Angeles.

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