Gloria Calderón Kellett Developing “With Love” as First Series Under Overall Production Deal with Amazon Studios

Gloria Calderón Kellett is bringing the Love to Amazon…

The 46-year-old Cuban American television writer/creator’s GloNation Studios and Amazon Studios have set With Love as the first series under Calderón Kellett’s overall deal with the streamer.

Gloria Calderón Kellett

The one-hour romantic dramedy, created and written by the One Day At a Time co-creator, had been fast tracked since the pitch stage with the goal to launch it during the 2021 holiday season.

Additionally, Calderón Kellett has set up three other series projects for development at Amazon Studios through GloNation as part of her deal. The wide-ranging slate includes Shakespeare-themed high-school drama Verona, co-created by Calderón Kellett; Glowing Up, a half-hour adult animation musical series based on the graphic novel Mismatched, a modern-day adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma; and Dating the Lopez Ladies, a half-hour animated comedy created by Calderón Kellett.

Glowing Up and Dating the Lopez Ladies follow Calderón Kellett’s foray into animation with the well-received special episode of One Day At a Time, which was produced during the COVID-19 pandemic last year. Meanwhile, With Love and Verona mark a return to the hour-long side for Calderón Kellett, who previously worked on Devious Maids and iZombie.

With Love follows the Diaz siblings, Lily and Jorge, who are on a mission to find love and purpose. The Diaz siblings cross paths with seemingly unrelated residents during some of the most heightened days of the year –the holidays.

“I started writing as a way to create characters and stories that represented myself and the community I love,” Calderón Kellett said. “After such a heavy year, there was nothing I wanted more than to see a happy, warm, loving family that looked like mine, celebrating trauma-free and falling in love. So, to be bringing that family to life as my first project with Amazon Studios feels especially personal and is incredibly exciting. I cannot wait to share With Love this holiday season!”

The holiday series is currently in prep, with production set to begin in June. Its pilot episode will be directed and executive produced by Meera Menon.

With Love is a special project and Gloria at her best, creating a world with a vibrant family at its center, hysterical circumstances, and so much heart and soul. We’re so proud of what’s to come of this series and can’t wait for the world to fall in love with it,” said Marc Resteghini, US and Global Head of Development for Amazon Studios.

Here are details about the three other projects from Calderón Kellett’s GloNation Studios in the works at Amazon:

VERONA
As Shakespeare so famously wrote, all the world’s a stage… and never is that truer than as a teenager, when you are performing for yourself, your peers, your parents, and social media. Verona is an hour-long drama series which takes the classic Shakespearean stories you know and love out of the renaissance and into present-day high school. The highs are still high, the lows are still low, but one thing is certain… high school drama is about to get a lot more poetic. We follow the Del Castillo sisters Nico, Delilah, and Inez as they play out familiar stories interweaved together in fair Verona where we lay our scene.
Created By: Roja Gashtili & Julia Lerman, Kelly Younger and Gloria Calderón Kellett.
Writers / Executive Producers: Roja Gashtili, Julia Lerman

GLOWING UP
Based on the graphic novel Mismatched (a modern-day adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma), Glowing Up is a half-hour adult animation musical series centered on Evan Horowitz, an out and proud Latino/Jew amateur matchmaker and wannabe makeup influencer. Evan is an old-school romantic who dedicates himself to getting true love to trend at his high school in Queens — through singing, dancing, and contoured cheekbones. A big gay musical comedy that focuses on love and celebrates LGBTQIA+ youth.
Writers / Executive Producers: Debby Wolfe & Marcos Luevanos
EPs: Gloria Calderón Kellett and Will Graham (for Field Trip)

DATING THE LOPEZ LADIES
A half-hour animated comedy series following plus-sized powerhouse Ilana Lopez. She’s a 25-year-old artist who runs a wildly successful comic strip about dating called Sharp Curves following the misadventures of her alter-ego Gabby. Gabby becomes all too real and is the devil on Ilana’s shoulder in life as well as on the page. When Ilana’s mother, the 49-year-old glamorous divorcee, Sofia visits, she points out that fictional Gabby has more fun than real-life Ilana. It makes Ilana and her friends energized to start a date club and take their romantic conquests seriously. Inspired by the young people, Sofia decides to join her daughter and friends in date club! Adventures and hilarity ensue.
Creator/Writer/EP: Gloria Calderón Kellett

Calderón Kellett, a leading voice in Latinx storytelling on television, was executive producer/co-showrunner, director and actress on Netflix/Pop’s One Day At A Time, which was universally praised for its authentic and nuanced portrayal of the the Latinx experience.

She began her TV writing career as a staff writer on the CBS comedy series How I Met Your Mother, rising to co-producer and earning an ALMA Award for one of her scripts in 2008. She then worked as a writer-producer on such series as CBS/Sony Television’s Rules of Engagement, Lifetime’s Devious Maids and the CW’s iZombie before taking on One Day at a Time. 

Netflix to Release Laysla De Oliveira’s Series “Locke and Key” in January

Laysla De Oliveirais under lock(e) and key

Netflix’s high-profile television adaptation of the bestselling IDW Comics graphic novels by writer Joe Hill and artist Gabriel Rodriguez, starring the 27-year-old Brazilian-Canadian actress, will premiere on February 7.

Laysla de Oliveira

Locke and Key stars Darby Stanchfield as Nina Locke,  Jackson Robert Scott as Bode Locke,  Connor Jessup as Tyler Locke, Emilia Jones as Kinsey Locke, Bill as Rendell Locke, De Oliveira as Dodge, Thomas Mitchell Barnet as Sam Lesser, Griffin Gluck as Gabe, and Coby Bird as Rufus Whedon.

The synopsis from Netflix: “After their father is murdered under mysterious circumstances, the three Locke siblings and their mother move into their ancestral home, Keyhouse, which they discover is full of magical keys that may be connected to their father’s death. As the Locke children explore the different keys and their unique powers, a mysterious demon awakens — and will stop at nothing to steal them. 

From Carlton Cuseand Meredith Averill, the series is a coming-of-age mystery about love, loss, and the unshakable bonds that define family.”

De Oliviera’s previous television credits include appearance on Covert AffairsiZombie and The Gifted.

Shomi Acquires Streaming Rights to Rodriguez’s “Jane the Virgin”

Life is but a stream for Gina Rodriguez in the Great White North…

Canada’s Shomi has acquired the exclusive streaming rights to The CW‘s Jane the Virgin series, starring the 29-year-old Puerto Rican actress, in a deal that bypasses broadcast.

Gina Rodriguez in Jane the Virgin

The licensing agreement with CBS Studios International follows Shomi grabbing the first window rights to another CW show, Rob ThomasiZombie, as part of a deal with Warner Bros.

“Once our exclusive period is up, the studio is free to license these titles for linear broadcast exhibitions on a second window, but no Canadian broadcaster will have these titles before us, or during our exclusive window,” Marni Shulman, head of content and programming at Shomi, told The Hollywood Reporter about the CBS distribution deal.

The Canadian streamer, a joint venture between Rogers Media and Shaw Media, launched last week as Canadian broadcasters compete against streaming goliath Netflix Canada. Shomi earlier agreed to a deal with Sony Pictures Television to acquire the exclusive streaming rights to The Blacklist, which landed on Netflix stateside as a first window.

Shomi is also streaming repeats of U.S. TV hit shows like 2 Broke Girls, Two and a Half Men, DaVinci’s Demons and Black Sails. It also has content deals signed with Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, Starz Digital Media and BBC Worldwide North America.

It’s the latest international deal for Rodriguez’s critically acclaimed series.

Last month, CBS Studios International and U.K. broadcaster Channel 4 sealed the deal on a licensing agreement for the exclusive first window, free-to-air broadcast rights to new critically acclaimed comedy Jane the Virgin.