Boomerang TV to Produce Two Series for Antena 3

MADRID: Boomerang TV announced it will be making El tiempo entre costuras and Toledo, two epic productions, for Spanish broadcaster Antena 3 to air next year.

El tiempo entre costuras, an adaptation from the novel by María Dueñas, is due to launch in early 2012. The 11-episode drama is set in North Africa at the beginning of the 20th Century.

Toledo (13×70) weaves a tale set in the 18th Century in the city of Toledo, which according to María García-Castrillón, in charge of fiction sales and acquisitions at Boomerang TV International, “is an important city because during that time a war was waging between Muslims and Christians, it was the city that divided their territories. There were different cultures as well as Jews and the show portrays how these people lived with that religious and political backdrop.”

Asked about why epic series were so successful in Spain, García-Castrillón said, “they’re very well made and the audience really gets involved in the stories. Historically, we’ve always had classic stories, which were comedies in typical settings. All things epic began with Águila roja and it did so well that other productions companies began making their own epics. Currently we only have this genre on the TV channels, but we believe the classics will be making a comeback. We can’t go on with epics forever! But we have all kinds of stories set in the past.”

Another project in the works is Gran Nord, a dramedy for TV3. “It’s about a cop who works in Barcelona but later moves into this town,” adds García-Castrillón. “He becomes the new sheriff but soon finds out the locals are a bit crazy, which in turn believe he is crazy, but there is a mystery in the town that needs to be solved.”

García-Castrillón also highlighted another production titled Impostor, an international co-production between Spain and Italy, with Telecinco also involved in the project.

In regards to Física o química, which aired on Antena 3 for seven seasons, García-Castrillón talked about the local version being made for Telemundo in the U.S., with a possible roll out between January and February of 2012. With this new deal “Boomerang TV becomes the first Spanish producer to sell a Spanish-fiction format to the U.S.”

According to García-Castrillón, “the adaptation of Física o química airs in Russia on CTC and has aired en 10 countries en recent years, among them, RAI 4 in Italy, NRJ in France and BTV in Belgium.”