Amazon MGM Execs Tout New Mercedes Ron Hit, How Spain’s ‘Apocalypse Z’ Became a Hit That’s Getting a Sequel: “Zombies Have No Nationality”

Spanish- and Portuguese-language stories are an increasingly key part of Amazon MGM Studios’ original content mix, and they can certainly keep up with Hollywood, two top executives told the sixth edition of Iberseries & Platino Industria in Spain’s capital Madrid on Tuesday.

Javiera Balmaceda, head of international originals for Latin America, Canada and Australia, and Nicole Morganti, head of international originals for Southern Europe, drew a big crowd with their session on how the studio develops and brings local-language stories to global audiences.

The executive duo also showed trailers for such action-packed film releases as Zeta and Vengeance. Zeta revolves around a national intelligence service team led by top agent Zeta, which must investigate the simultaneous killing of five former Spanish spies in different embassies around the world. Vengeance‘s plot is focused on Carlos Estrada. When his wife is brutally murdered, the decorated special forces hero is left with only one purpose: vengeance.

Of course, the success of bestselling author Mercedes Ron‘s film adaptations on Prime Video, from her popular Fault (Culpables) series to the recently launched romantic thriller Drawn Together (Marfil), was a key talking point and a point of pride for the executives.

Balmaceda highlighted that Drawn Together, starring Ester Expósito (Elite, The Wailing) and Hugo Diego Garcia (Death and Other Details, The Substance), has proven to be a hit after Culpables, which she described as “a massive success.” She told the Iberseries audience: “[Mercedes Ron] is the queen of young adult because Marfil is working extremely well as well.”

Why is the company making Spanish or Spanish-language action and dystopian fare when Hollywood has such a strong reputation for such genres? The Amazon MGM execs said that they have heard the question before.

“The United States produces a lot of action, such as Jack Ryan and other titles that work very well worldwide, so that’s why they ask us why we want to produce an action movie in Mexico or Spain,” Balmaceda shared. “I say more is more. We can do it as well. We can produce a successful movie, a successful story and make the audience grow, and it’s easy to see all the new audiences we have attracted.”

Morganti pointed to the upcoming Apocalypse Z sequel, Apocalypse Z: New World, which follows the original becoming one of the top non-English content offerings on the streaming platform. “There was a fantastic idea for an apocalyptic story in Spain, a very Spanish story with zombies,” she said about the first film’s genesis. “And they asked, ‘Why are you doing zombies in Spain?’ Well, first of all, because horror is a Spanish genre, and you need to democratize that as well, and you need to tell the bosses that it can be done. Also, zombies don’t have a nationality. They don’t speak English either. So now we are going to launch Apocalypse Z part 2 on Halloween.”