3Pas Studios’ Ben Odell & Eugenio Derbez on What Latino Audiences Want

Following in the footsteps of his mother, the renowned Mexican telenovela actress Silvia Derbez, Eugenio Derbez’s first ventures into acting were as an extra, eventually landing roles in various telenovelas on Televisa. Years later, it was the same network that gave him a platform for his comedy shows, including Al derecho y al DerbezDerbez en cuando and La familia P. Luche. Despite his popularity with Latin audiences and appearances in some films, it wasn’t until Instructions Not Included that Derbez achieved global success and recognition. To date, it is the highest-grossing Spanish-language film and one of the highest-grossing foreign films of all time in the U.S., also breaking box office records during its opening weekend in Mexico.

By that time, Derbez had already begun his collaboration, which would later turn into a friendship and lead to the creation of 3Pas Studios, with Ben Odell, a television industry executive who had been part of companies like Televisa and Pantelion Films and had a deep understanding of what Latino audiences wanted to see. Today, Derbez serves as chairman and co-founder, while Odell is the CEO and co-founder.

In 2024, 3Pas Studios celebrated its tenth anniversary, marked by several consecutive successes, including the LOL: Last One Laughing format and the adventure series De Viaje Con Los Derbez on Prime Video, Acapulco on Apple TV+—renewed for a fourth season—the film Radical and Y llegaron de noche for ViX. The company also has partnerships with Univision, ABC Signature and Audible.

World Screen Weekly spoke with Derbez and Odell, who highlighted the beginnings of 3Pas Studios, the challenges and opportunities they’ve faced over the past decade and “the importance of being a global company that started working for Latinos but now works for the whole world,” as the actor put it.

***Image***WS: You celebrated ten years since the founding of 3Pas Studios. What have been the main challenges and milestones of the studio over this decade?
DERBEZ: One of the biggest achievements I believe we’ve had as a company is understanding the Latino audience. Hollywood executives have been trying for years to reach Latinos because they say Latinos are the group that goes to the movies the most, buys the most tickets, so they need to make films for them. But in their minds, producing for Latinos means making a movie about immigrants crossing the border. Boring! No Latino wants to see that.

I always tell them, “In Mexico, we want to watch Marvel movies or big titles like Apollo 13 or Titanic.” We like watching films that show us other worlds. So, as a company, we’ve succeeded in understanding that.

We released Y llegaron de noche, a series about Dracula, which is based on a true story where a group of Latinos made a film that was rated as a better version than the one originally made in English. We love making those kinds of films that portray Latinos positively but still feel like you’re watching a Hollywood movie.

When we created the company, one of my goals was to start changing the narrative that the only roles for a Latino were the villain, murderer, drug addict or drug dealer. When I arrived in Hollywood with the dream of playing many different roles, they kept offering me the same ones. So, I would say, “But Latinos are much more than that.” That’s how we started at 3Pas, trying to change the narrative and represent Latinos on screen in a different way.

The best example of this is the movie Overboard, which is an adaptation of the original, starring Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell. When we spoke with the studio, they said, “This movie is perfect because it’s the story of a millionaire and a carpenter, and you could be the carpenter.” After discussing it with Ben, we decided it would be a great idea to switch the roles, with the Mexican being the millionaire and the American playing the poor character. The movie did incredibly well, and our audience loved that change. They finally got to see a Latino on screen as a successful millionaire, not the poor, villainous gang member or struggling character. So, that’s the kind of thing we’ve done at 3Pas—working to change how Latinos are perceived in Hollywood.

ODELL: In terms of challenges, the biggest one has been getting Hollywood to understand the audience, what we want to do and how we plan to reach them. Another major challenge has been the prejudice about what will work or not. Additionally, when we started working with the company, Eugenio said he wanted to make films in English, but we weren’t sure if we’d be able to bring his U.S. audience to theaters.

That’s when we started discussing the formula, which isn’t really a formula but more of a guide. The idea is that when the characters should speak Spanish, they will speak Spanish, and the same goes for English. We started experimenting with this in How to Be a Latin Lover, where, in his relationship with Salma Hayek, they always speak in Spanish. We did the same in Overboard and later applied it in Acapulco.

We try to be very organic, but as Eugenio says, we want things that are, first and foremost, universal—something that will attract any audience to the theater—and second, that the characters are real, authentic and portray Latinos well. This process has been very difficult because we had to prove to Hollywood that these types of productions work. It’s not that they just let us do whatever we wanted.

WS: Where do you continue to search for new stories? How important is it to keep giving space to Latino stories? Are you looking for new or well-known IPs?
DERBEZ: At first, it was very difficult. I give a lot of credit to Ben because he’s the one in the office receiving all the scripts that come our way. It’s an exhaustive job to read through them and figure out what’s worth pursuing and what isn’t. I remember when Ben told me about the article from Wired magazine (A Radical Way of Unleashing a Generation of Geniuses, 2013); I found it very interesting. I recalled seeing the cover of the article when it was published in Mexico, which talked about a girl who had practically been born in a garbage dump and, by the age of 12, was already being considered the next Steve Jobs in the U.S. So, I wanted to learn more about this story, but I wasn’t sure if it would be commercial.

Ben has had great vision in guiding the company in both comedy and drama, but I believe these types of stories work best for us, and I’ll explain why. As an audience, we want to see stories that inspire us, and I think Radical is a great example. We’re talking about a real and very interesting story, but it’s about a successful Latino, a teacher who found a new formula to make sure all the kids in his classroom were ranked among the top in the country in Mexico. The same goes for Y llegaron de noche, which tells the story of a group of Latinos who achieved something no one could have imagined. This is how we’ve come across several projects, where people have approached us with stories about a group of Latinos who succeeded, and I think, “How have I never heard of this before?”

We’re increasingly receiving more scripts of that type, which, fortunately, work and are interesting for our audience but can also be enjoyed by anyone in Germany, China, Japan or anywhere in the world who would say, “What an interesting story!” We want our products to travel around the world, and that’s the best way to represent Latinos.
ODELL: I would also say that when we started, it was just Eugenio, me and an assistant, and now we’re 20 people. We’ve built a great team, including Javier Williams, senior VP of Spanish-language Series and CEO of Visceral (3Pas’s production services arm), who oversees all Spanish-language series; Sonia Gambaro, senior VP of English-language television, who supervises Acapulco and developments with ABC Signature; Leo Zimbron, senior VP of international co-productions and Spanish-language features; and Jordan Rubio, VP of kids and comedy. Each of them is searching for and sifting through material.

To find something like Radical, you have to read 20, 30 or 40 articles because many won’t work, and others we pursue may not work either. You can’t just push what you want; instead, you have to work based on a diversified strategy.

WS: Ben, you mentioned some of the deals you have with studios and platforms. How do you work on parallel projects?
ODELL: We’ve never had fewer than 100 projects in some stage of development across each department, including podcasts through our agreement with Audible, with ABC Signature for English-language television and ViX for Spanish-language television. Right now, we don’t have a deal in film. We’re doing everything freelance, but each department has an executive in charge. Every project goes through them and then comes to us.

DERBEZ: Right now, we’re working with many platforms, including Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+, Audible and Hulu—pretty much all of them. The great thing about all of this is that we’re not just producing for the sake of it. All our projects are ranked among the top on every platform. If you look at the top ten on Prime Video, you’ll see all seasons of De Viaje Con Los Derbez and LOL: Last One Laughing. The same goes for ViX, where everything we’ve produced for the platform is ranked at the top. On Apple TV+, I believe Acapulco is number one in Latin America. Everything we’ve produced is performing well, and we’re ranked at the top of each platform. We’re very proud to know that we’re not just producing quantity but also quality.