Yahoo News ‘24’ Showrunner Stephen Kronish and Director Jon Cassar Board El Estudio Thriller ‘Barcelona’ (EXCLUSIVE)
Stephen Kronish and Jon Cassar, showrunner and director-producer respectively of “24,” the ratings and critical hit which ran on Fox network for nine seasons, have boarded upcoming thriller series “Barcelona.”
The news was jointly announced by transatlantic production company El Estudio, Jeff Berg’s Northside Services, Todd Slater’s Convoke Media (“King of Killers”) and Karen and Howard Baldwin (“Ray”) of Kemb Prods. who have teamed up to produce the ambitious project.
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“Barcelona” is one of 10 series being presented at the inaugural Co-Production and Financing Forum at Madrid’s 2nd Iberseries & Platino Industria TV event.
Based on Irish writer David Fennelly’s trilogy of novels, the three-season series set in Barcelona is described as a cross between “Homeland” and “Fauda” and “explores the origins of terrorism in Barcelona.” Fennelly and his manager Larry Levitsky also form part of the pool of producers on the project.
“This is a step forward in our growth strategy. As a premium content production company on both sides of the ocean, it was a matter of time before we found the right project and partners to embark on an organically multilingual, universal story with talent of this caliber,” said El Estudio CEO, Diego Suarez Chialvo, a former senior VP at Sony Pictures Int’l. Productions.
Developed in-house at El Estudio and with dialogue in English, Spanish and Catalan, “Barcelona” reveals the underside of the iconic city as it follows MacNamara, an NCIS agent and a war veteran who was wounded in the terrorist attack on the USS Cole in 2000. He is now in charge of coordinating security with local law enforcement units for U.S. troops disembarking in Europe, with Barcelona among the main ports. He teams up with Spanish national police officer Ramon Renau to prevent a Jihadist terrorist attack on the visiting U.S. Secretary of State’s life and a U.S. Sixth Fleet ship docking in Barcelona. The caveat: They have only eight days as they race against the clock.
According to Suarez, Season One will take place over those eight days. Not unlike “24,” the real-time countdown contributes to the driving tension in the series. The next two seasons will focus on their attempts to bring down The Fraternity and Mustapha al Yemeni, one of its key leaders.
“This project is timely and smart, set in a unique location that has not yet been exposed to the viewing public. It is an insider’s look at the complexity of Barcelona,” added Pablo Cruz, El Estudio president of production, Americas.
“Barcelona” was originally developed by Spanish writer, Xabi Puerta (“Gran Hotel”) and Spanish director, Kike Maillo (“Eva”).
Founded in early 2020, El Estudio has recently announced three major staff promotions and at least 10 new projects to be released this year.
With outposts in Madrid, Mexico City, Los Angeles, and Buenos Aires, the fledgling transatlantic company has been producing mostly Spanish-language content but also has English or multilingual projects in the pipeline, with “Barcelona” among them.
Founded by Cruz, Suárez Chialvo and Enrique López Lavigne, El Estudio’s credits include the award-winning “The Dance of the 41” (Cinepolis & Netflix); food documentary franchise “The Taco Chronicles” (Netflix); the docu-reality “Being Pampita” (Paramount+); Spanish feature “Voy a pasármelo bien” (Sony/Amazon/TVE) and the celebrated docuseries “A Kidnapping Scandal, The Florence Cassez Affair” (Netflix).
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