Gustavo Aparicio de Spanglish Movies
Although Gustavo Aparicio, CEO of Spanglish Movies, admits that his first love is the cinema and that the core of his company is the distribution of content, movies in theaters, and series for platforms, he is preparing several new projects for this semester: one related with music synchronization, another with podcasts, another with NFTs and also three branded content projects.
“Our first love is cinema. Yes, I am an engineer, but I fell in love with the film industry, with movies a long time ago. And everything we do revolves around the cinema. We continue to believe in cinema, premieres -despite COVID- in which is something that gives love and important value to films. And everything starts from there. We have a very good relationship with the big circuits like Cinemark, Cinemex, National Amusement, MAC, Caribbean Cinemas, so it’s a round trip. So we continue placing films in the cinema. Right now we have two: Chilangolandia, a Mexican movie, on the west coast; and Life of Kings, on the East Coast, a Dominican film. And we are doing well. We have a way of marketing that is cost-efficient for movies with less than 100-150 screens, which is not common, and that also brings a lot to subscription platforms, VOD,” said Aparicio in #PRODUprimetime with Ríchard Izarra.
BASEBALL SERIES
“José María Cabral is the only Caribbean to have won at Sundance, and he is now in post-production on a baseball series. 25% of US baseball players are Latino, and a huge part is Caribbean, that is, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans; so we have a baseball series able to reach the Latino audience, but obviously the US Hispanic, and eventually the mainstream audience. We also have a series like Life in Heels, about a kind of Apprentice crossed with Shark Tank, starring a Latina in Los Angeles. So we have many products. We are involved in what we can, from pre to production, even in some way thinking about platforms or theaters, thinking about the moviegoer, about who is going to see that series,” he said.
ORIGINAL PRODUCTION
RI: What are the IPs you have? What can you tell us about your original production unit?
GA: “It was born from our relationship with subscriptions, VOD platforms, where suddenly we realized that there was a need to generate originals. In 2020 we put that unit together, and produced a film in Puerto Rico with Sandra Echeverría, Pedro Capó, a thriller, working with tax incentive laws of Puerto Rico. The movie did very well. Later we produced a series with Caribbean Cinemas in the Dominican Republic, and a series for Pantaya called Líos de Familia that will premieres on February 3. Together with Caribbean Cinemas, we helped produce Ozuna’s film, his biopic called Odisea. We brought to the team Diego Musiak, an Argentine director who has worked on five continents and is helping us with the content development unit. We are generating a lot of product and in various places, not only in the Caribbean or Miami,” he pointed out.
NFT AS NEW WINDOW
RI: As an engineer and marketer, can you help us understand where this modality of generating NFT’s products is going?
GA: “It’s a new window. I think it has to be treated with great respect and care, respect above all. There is a speculative part of something that is supposed to make money, and the artistic part is not necessarily taken seriously, which, at the end of the day, is what will remain as value, what will generate value as a collectible. I have something unique, that is pretty enough, attractive, that has value over time, that goes beyond something speculative in the short term. And that’s where we’re working. We are content distributors, it’s something we like, and Spanglish is the core. So working with content creators to generate those unique pieces that maintain value over time and that are pieces where fans of a particular artist, genre, or a movie, feel proud not only for owning a unique piece 10 years from now but also that it is worth much more than it was 10 years before. We work with many musicians in scripting and that is where I think the NFT concept has a lot to offer, it can bring extra value for the talents, the producers, and the fans,” he explained.
BRANDED CONTENT
RI: We know that you are promoting a new unit of branded content. Where does that unit fit in all the things that you develop?
GA: “In a way, it’s organic as it was organic to start generating originals because we already had a relationship with the SVODs and they needed personalized content for their own members. VOD platforms will continue to grow and their initial income is from advertising, so they have a relationship with the advertising agencies. So generating original content with integrated brands in a fine, stylish, professional, artistic way, that is sophisticated enough so that whoever sees that content continues to watch it, is our job. The first three projects we have are a chef show in NY, a talk show, and a property called Afrolatinos, we are pre-producing all three, creating pilots, and talking to potential agencies and advertisers to participate from scratch. It’s organic to that universe of content, between people who want to see particular content and people who produce. We are in the middle trying to build bridges,” he concluded.
View interview here
