Family Drama – Monarca

There’s no drama quite like family drama. And while HBO subscribers are going gaga for Succession, Netflix and Salma Hayek are here to offer you their own take on a billionaire family wrestling with how to manage a lucrative if corrupt family business. Executive produced by the Frida star, Monarca takes its title from the tequila-born Mexican business empire that Fausto Carranza (David Rencoret) has built and is now ready to bequeath to one of his children.

Of course, once the family patriarch dies, the choice of Monarca’s future will lie with his wife, who’ll have to make the tough decision of what kind of future for family and business her children will create. Weaving a tale of the family dysfunction with requisite subplots about closeted husbands, bullied teenagers, and assassination attempts alongside a thrilling indictment of power, privilege, and corruption, Monarca plays like a timely prestige telenovela. After a Hayek-ful teaser from a few weeks back, the streaming service released a full-blown taste of what to expect from what was the No. 1 show on Netflix in Mexico the weekend after it premiered.

Check out the full trailer below. Monarca is now streaming on Netflix.

What Did Lady Gaga Say She Was A Masochist When She Acts?

AMY KAUFMAN, LA Times Lady Gaga had been holding back. Fifteen minutes into a conversation with five of her peers — Penélope Cruz, Kirsten Dunst, Jennifer Hudson, Kristen Stewart and Tessa Thompson — the performer had yet to speak unless spoken to. It was so unusual for her that she decided to interrupt the conversation to offer an explanation.

“But I’m so fascinated listening to you. I feel like I’m learning so much about all of you and the way that you approach your craft and the way your personal lives are interwoven into everything you do. I feel like being vulnerable for a second and sharing that.”

She said she was opening up about her “totally unhealthy” process in the hope of both connecting with the others on The Envelope’s Actress Roundtable and seeking advice from women who have more film experience than she does. Gaga’s role in “House of Gucci” is just her second major turn as a movie star, following her Oscar-nominated part in 2018’s “A Star Is Born.” In the new Ridley Scott film, she plays Patrizia Regianni, the real-life Italian whose stormy marriage to the head of Gucci nearly brought down the famous fashion house.

The “Twilight” veteran, who began acting when she was 8, appears most recently as Princess Diana in “Spencer.” In the movie, Stewart depicts the late royal in the fragile final days before she separated from the Prince of Wales. Dunst, too, has been in front of the camera since childhood.

Her latest role comes in “The Power of the Dog,” in which she plays a newlywed whose ornery brother-in-law refuses to welcome her to the family. Hudson, who like Gaga began her career as a singer, pivoted to movies with her Academy Award-winning turn in 2006’s “Dreamgirls.” Now, the 40-year-old can be seen as Aretha Franklin in “Respect,” which follows the legendary soul artist from her church origins through alcoholism to global superstardom.

Now a member of Marvel’s “Thor” franchise, she is still loyal to her independent roots with her new film “Passing.” Set in the 1920s, the movie is the story of a Black woman who realizes her old friend is passing through New York society as a white woman, causing her to reassess her own life choices.

Who Revealed She Got In Trouble While Working On The Set Of Her New Netflix Project?

Salma Hayek revealed she got in trouble while working on the set of her new Netflix project. Loading the player… The actress turned executive producer shared her experience with COVID-19 protocols, admitting she scared people away because she kept forgetting to wear her face mask.

She also admitted that she faced many complications to get the second season of the show going, and while she checked the monitors “everyone’s running away from me.” Salma was repeatedly told “No! You can’t come this way, you have no mask!”

What Mexican Drama Has Been Picked Up By Netflix?

Netflix has picked up Mexican drama “Monarca” from Salma Hayek’s Ventanarosa, as the streamer continues to build out its international output. The new series starring, Irene Azuela and Juan Manuel Bernal, will follow the world of wealthy Mexican elites riddled by corruption, scandal and violence. The series will be produced by Hayek’s company, Ventanarosa, along with Lemon Studios and Stearns Castle.

We are proud to show Mexico as a vibrant, sophisticated and culturally rich nation, fighting to control its own destiny,” said Hayek. The series will begin production this fall and launch globally in 2019. “We look forward to bringing the best originals to the world through partnerships with key players such as Ventanarosa and Lemon Studios.”

Who Wrote “Monarca” On Netflix?

In Salma Hayek’s “Monarca” on Netflix, three siblings from the Mexican 1% learn how to manage their lives and their family Tequila company between personal vicissitudes, corporate intrigue, and the social constraints that the narrative presents as powerful as any individual initiative. As it often happens when celebrities attach their names to luxury spirits, the ads generated some buzz in Mexico, also because for once the national and cultural identity of the actress coincided with the one of the product she was promoting. A video that promoted the fictional drink had visual components that probably not many marketing agencies would include: a snake, barrels in flame, a bullet falling into a glass of tequila.

Definitely not a connotation that marketers would want attached to any goods… In the series, Tequila Herederos is the main product of the Monarca corporation, which started from humble beginnings in distilling and bottling to later expand to hotels, constructions, and transportation, among other activities. The narrative develops around Ana María, one of three siblings that are supposed to inherit the company. Unlike her two brothers, who remained to work with their father, she had left Mexico for the US, where she built a career as a journalist.

I won’t tell more to avoid any spoilers for the show, which is very well produced and quite entertaining despite (or maybe because) its frequent flirting with novela-style plot and acting. Most of the twists and turns in Monarca are somehow connected with tequila production, as some family members want to bring it back as the core of the company, while others would prefer to focus on other, more remunerative – but shadier – activities. Part of the first few episodes takes place in the gorgeous family hacienda in Tequila, Jalisco state, a colonial style mansion built right next to an agave plantation.

At a certain point, the patriarch takes his granddaughter (Ana María’s daughter, raised in the US) to see farmers taking out the agave from the soil and cutting the leaves from the core. In the opening of the third episode, the matriarch muses, while tasting three different kinds of tequila: “blanco, reposado, añejo. Each one with its virtues and its defects.

All three are excellent, so I need to congratulate the tequila mistress.” In reality, she is reflecting on the qualities of her three children and on who would be the best to ensure the destiny of the family and the company. The sequence, which would seem taken out of a promotional video, is immediately followed by an explosion that destroys much of the company warehouse.

They were born in wealth, and their issues is to learn how to manage it between personal vicissitudes, corporate intrigue, and the social constraints that, according to the narrative, are as powerful in Mexico as any individual initiative.

What Is The Name Of The Original Drama Series From Mexico Produced By Salma Hayek?

Netflix has ordered Monarca, an original drama series from Mexico produced by Salma Hayek’s Ventanarosa Productions, Lemon Studios and Michael McDonald’s Stearns Castle. Irene Azuela (Quemar las Naves) and Juan Manuel Bernal (Capadocia) are attached to star, and production is scheduled to begin in the fall for a 2019 global premiere. Created by Diego Gutierrez, who also serves as showrunner, and written by Lemon Studios’ Fernando Rovzar, Julia Denis, Ana Sofia Clerici and Sandra García Velten, Monarca will follow the world of wealthy Mexican elites riddled by corruption, scandal and violence.

“I’m extremely excited to partner with Netflix, and to be working with amazing Mexican talent in front of and behind the camera. We are proud to show Mexico as a vibrant, sophisticated and culturally rich nation, fighting to control its own destiny,” said Hayek. Netflix “Mexico is a top priority for us in which to continue to develop series,” said Erik Barmack, VP International Originals, “and we look forward to bringing the best originals to the world through partnerships with key players such as Ventanarosa and Lemon Studios.”

Having been born and raised in Mexico, I’m humbled to have the opportunity to tell this story with Netflix and the incredibly talented team of people we’re assembling, both in the U.S. and Mexico.” Ventanarosa produced Frida, which earned Hayek nominations for an Oscar, Golden Globe, SAG and BAFTA. Its other titles include Emmy and Golden Globe winner Ugly Betty, animated film Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, The Maldonado Miracle, El coronel no tiene quien le escriba and In the Time of the Butterflies.

Mexico’s Lemon Studios, founded by Billy and Fernando Rovzar, has produced 15 feature films and 12 television series. It won the top prize in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival for Después de Lucía and an International Emmy Award for the third season of Sr. Ávila for HBO Latin America. Lemon Studios’ other titles include Matando Cabos, Kilometer 31, Saving Private Perez, Paramédicos, La Piloto, La Bella y las Bestias among others.

What Is The Name Of The Mexican Drama That Netflix Has Greenlit?

Netflix has greenlit another international series. The streaming giant has handed out a series order to Mexican drama Monarca, starring Irene Azuela (Quemar las Naves, El hotel de los secretos, Las oscuras primaveras). The new series, which will begin production this fall and will launch globally in 2019, will follow the world of wealthy Mexican elites riddled by corruption, scandal and violence.

In addition to Azuela, the series will star Juan Manuel Bernal. Monarca was created by Diego Gutierrez and written by Fernando Rovzar, Julia Denis, Ana Sofia Clerici and Sandra García Velten. Michael McDonald from Stearns Castle will serve as a producer.

“We are proud to show Mexico as a vibrant, sophisticated and culturally rich nation fighting to control its own destiny.” Added creator and showrunner Gutierrez: “This is the definition of a passion project for me. Having been born and raised in Mexico, I’m humbled to have the opportunity to tell this story with Netflix and the incredibly talented team of people we’re assembling, both in the U.S. and Mexico.”

Monarca marks Netflix’s latest push for local content in global territories. The streamer has made a concerted effort to create shows and films targeting consumers in India, along with Brazil and several European countries.

What Is The Mexican Take On Monarca?

Oh, billionaires. Their lives are so much more complicated than those of the unwashed masses, aren’t they? Now, there’s a Mexican take on this genre, Monarca.

Fausto has built Monarca over the years into the huge company it is by playing the game with the government, the cartel, and whoever helps get him what he wants. His son Andrés (Osvaldo Benavides), who is in charge of the hotel division, is harboring a longtime not-so-secret affair with a male artists. So he turns to his daughter Ana Maria (Irene Azuela), who left Hacienda de Monarca when she was a teenager after seeing something traumatic.

It doesn’t work that way in Mexico.” He’s spent 25 years helping his father build the company and he knows that “going clean” is a death sentence. Andrés has his own issues; he has to deflect news that the company is failing, especially when Forbes drops Monarca from its “biggest corporations in Mexico” list.

What we kept thinking, though, as we watched Monarca (where Salma Hayek is also one of the EPs) is that it felt a whole lot like an American series that’s currently on the air and generating a lot of buzz. Yes, in many ways, Monarca is a Mexican Succession, except without the funny stuff. But by the end of the first episode, some of that falls away as we realize the control of Monarca will be more of a free-for-all than it may seem in the first 43 minutes of episode 1.

Parting Shot: We find out why Ana Maria is lurching around the agave field with her shirt full of blood. Sleeper Star: We liked Carla Adell as Ana Maria’s younger daughter Camilla, who has her mother’s sense of right and wrong, and may help guide her mother as she figures out how to clean up Monarca. Most Pilot-y Line: The plotline of the sibling who is keeping up hetero appearances but has a secret gay lover, whose presence is scandalous, feels very retrograde and borderline homophobic.

Monarca is OK, but is full of archetypes and doesn’t show anything new.