U.S. HISPANIC
Gato Grande: We want to increase Latinos’ representation in content in English for all audiences in the US
Maribel Ramos-Weiner| 21 de junio de 2023
Carla González Vargas de Gato Grande
Carla González, CEO of Gato Grande, said in #PRODUprimetime with Ríchard Izarra, that they have a year developing shows with top-level Hollywood writers focused on the Anglo market with a greater representation of Latinos in roles not usual in content in English and not only targeting US Hispanics but all types of public.
As an example, she mentioned the African-American creator Shonda Rhimes. “Ten years ago she started introducing African-American characters into mainstream media with Gray’s Anatomy and now with Bridgerton she has an African-American queen and that is the intention, if you notice, there are no similar products showing Latinos even for an American public. So that is the intention of Gato Grande.”
Opening the conversation and representation of Latinos on screen in the country that provides the content to the entire world is the purpose of Gato Grande US, said González, who supervises this region, while Maximiliano Sanguine is in charge of Gato Grande Latin America.
She also mentioned her experience in the Netflix series Wednesday, in which Gato Grande participated as a script consultant following actress Jenna Ortega’s request of having more Hispanic heritage representation of her character since Merlina is half Mexican and half American. “That’s when I got involved with the scripts and the showrunners to see how we could further Mexicanize the character. It was an incredible experience in Bucharest to see Tim Burton direct firsthand. I think that what the series accomplished has become a model for many others to follow in terms of how to integrate a Hispanic heritage in a very organic way.”
Gato Grande is investing heavily in intellectual property in order to see Hispanics in completely unexpected roles. “We have a very ambitious fantasy, science fiction, big, expensive projects,” she said, after reporting that they have a choice of at least seven books to make content in English, of different genres, with Hispanic characters, most of them Mexican.
SURVIVE WINTER
She noted that it is a hard time for production companies and fewer productions are being made due to a decrease in demand by platforms. Hence, a must strategy is to invest in intellectual property. She added that there have also been project cancellations, not only in Latin America but in the rest of the world. “I believe that in times like these budgets are not unlimited. But it does seem to me that we are having problems with that,” and she is grateful not to have that pressure.
For her, Gato Grande has the best of both worlds: it is the only producer that has a streamer as a partner, but at the same time has independence and freedom to continue operating in multiple markets.
“I think that all industries go through ‘seasons’ during the year and without a doubt, we are in winter. I don’t know how long this winter is going to last, so I think that as bears do, you have to figure out how to weather it out and not just survive it, but find the opportunity in these difficult times for the industry because nothing lasts forever. The issue is who is going to prevail when it turns around,” she said.
She recommended investing in intellectual property and talent in these times, ” because inventories do not end, they are cyclical, so you can have series in incubation that perhaps did not find a home a year ago, but in two years they will. In that sense, the inventory does not depreciate, especially if you as a company own the complete inventory, it does not expire,” she said.
She also said that finding projects with less incubation is a must, such as unscripted and true crime, as well as genres that are in greater demand and that require less investment in time and money. “We are also growing in movies,” she said, after pointing out that unscripted movies have a faster return than fiction series.
GATO GRANDE IN THE US AND LATIN AMERICA
For González investing in development in the US versus Latin America implies different schemes since the risk in the US is greater. “A fiction project in the US costs five times more than a project in Spanish, but being able to go into production on a series in English yields five times more than in Latin America. So the reward level equals the level of risk,” she explained.
Gato Grande opened a call for Iberseries in order to fund developments, so they will be listening to pitches in Spain during the month of October. She noted that they evaluate about 60 proposals a month.
Finally, she said that she sees greater robustness in the platforms: both in their development and supervision processes and in production. “I think in that sense there is more maturity on the client side in terms of their methods of supervising and developing with production companies. And I have noticed more growth in representation agencies, managers, and creative agents, than before.”
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