After months of intrigue and speculation, we finally have confirmation that Netflix has begun production on it’s formerly untitled Spanish-language, soccer-themed original series… and we now have a title! Club de Cuervos, produced and directed by the gang behind Mexican box office phenomenon Nosotros los nobles (We Are the Nobles), is now officially filming in various locations throughout Mexico and should be available for human consumption on that groundbreaking digital platform sometime later this year.
The series was created by newcomer Mike Lam and produced by Alazraki Entertainment, the Mexico City-based production company started by Nosotros los nobles helmer Gaz Alazraki and his producing partner Leo Zimbron. Also brought over from the Nobles corral is star Luis Gerardo Méndez, who had a supporting role in that other Mexican box-office phenomenon, Cantinflas. Other confirmed cast members include Mariana Treviño (Una última y nos vamos), Stephanie Cayo (La Hipocondríaca) and Daniel Giménez Cacho (Bad Education).
Plot details are still a bit sketchy, but we now know that Club de Cuervos will be a satirical take on a wealthy family feuding over the soccer club inherited from their recently-deceased patriarch. Perhaps nothing is more Latino than inheritance feuds (or is it just my family?), and we know from Arrested Development that wealthy families are a goldmine for intelligent humor, so the series is certainly promising.
With an ever-expanding output of commercially oriented films, and a voracious filmgoing audience, it seems logical that Netflix would see the untapped potential of the Mexican television market for higher production values and more sophisticated storytelling. While the country is famous for its television duopoly, with a market tightly controlled by the behemoth conglomerates Televisa and TV Azteca, it seems the new digital platforms may be chipping away at their nearly universal audience share and satisfying growing demand for something more than assembly-line telenovelas and crude humor. That is, if they don’t fall into that same trap themselves.
Club de Cuervos will premiere its first season later this year on Netflix.