Xavier Velasco’spopular book will soon get the Spanish telenovela treatment…
Televisa and Colombian producer RTI have acquired the rights for a television adaptation of the 47-year-old Mexican author’s award-winning novel Diablo Guardián (Guardian Devil).
Released in 2003, Velasco’s novel—the winner of the PremioAlfaguara, one of Latin America’s most prestigious literary prizes—centers on the adventures of a rebellious 15-year-old girl who flees her native Mexico and later finds herself immersed in a world of vice in New York.
Production on the television version of the novel will begin in a few months. The series brings together two big names in Spanish-language television: Televisa, the world’s largest producer of Spanish-language content, and Bogota-based RTI, producer of the hit narco telenovela La Reina del Sur, which stars Kate del Castillo.
Televisa and RTI recently signed a co-production pact good through 2019.
Kate del Castillo has booked her latest project… And it could entertain children for hours on end.
The 39-year-old Mexican actress and telenovela star has lent her voice to a tech-enhanced bilingual storybook app that’s based on a little-known children’s book dating back about a century.
Entitled Punky Dunk and The Gold Fish, the whimsical tale centers on the ultimate curious cat, Punky Dunk, with the book redesigned as an interactive early reader for the iPad.
“Punky Dunk is a charming series of children’s tales. The artist Kat Llewellyn wanted to develop them in this unique electronic way. Her excitement and enthusiasm for telling children’s stories sold me on the project,” says actor Matthew Modine, who also lent his voice to the project. “The idea of turning these into interactive apps seemed like an exciting way to get children involved in reading, which was invaluable to me growing up.”
The storybook app was designed as part of the Punky Dunk Project, using lost literature to develop an imaginative and dynamic learning experience for young readers.
In homage to the original book, the app has been carefully hand-drawn to reflect the illustrations and watercolors of the 1912 print edition.
To celebrate the book’s centennial, it features 101 interactive sounds and animations, expertly coded by Glow Interactive.
Punky Dunk and The Gold Fish is being released by Dumfun Productions, in association with Cinco Dedos Películas.
It’s available through the iTunes Store for iPad and the Amazon Appstore for the Kindle Fire.
Things are about to get pretty Grimm for Kate del Castillo…
The 39-year-old Mexican actress and telenovela star has signed to guest star on Grimm, NBC’s dark police procedural that takes place in a world in which characters inspired by Grimms’ Fairy Tales exist.
del Castillo will portray a Portland-based detective searching for a child abductor, and that criminal could very well be the legendary La Llorona.
Grimm fans know monsters play a part in each and every episode. And, La Llorona is expected to give the show a Latin twist, by shining a spotlight on one of Latin America’s most famous legends.
According to legend, a beautiful woman named Maria kills her children by drowning them; in order to be with the man she loves. When he rejects her, she kills herself. Challenged at the gates of heaven as to the whereabouts of her children, she isn’t permitted to enter the afterlife until she finds them. So Maria is forced to wander the earth for all eternity, searching in vain for her drowned offspring, with her constant weeping giving her the name La Llorona.
It’s no surprise that Kate del Castillo will be returning to her throne at Telemundo in the near future…
The network has announced that producers are in the early stages of pre-production on a sequel to Telemundo’s hit telenovela, La Reina del Sur.
Based on a novel of the same name by Spanish author Arturo Pérez-Reverte, the drama tells the story of the rise of Teresa Mendoza (played by del Castillo), a young woman from Mexico who becomes the most powerful drug trafficker in southern Spain.
The first episode of La Reina del Sur, which aired on February 28, 2011, attracted 2.4 million viewers, making it the most viewed premiere for any telenovela on the network. Over the course of its run, the telenovela frequently dominated it’s time slot for broadcast television among the 18-34 age demographic. And the final episode, broadcast on May 30, 2011, was Telemundo’s highest rated broadcast in its 19-year history, attracting nearly 4.2 million viewers and dominating its time slot among the 18-49 demographic, beating out the English language networks.
Despite del Castillo’s recent deal with rival Univision to produce and star in webnovelas for the network, Telemundo has confirmed that del Castillo will reprise her role.
Kate del Castillo’s quest to become a Hollywood leading lady is one step closer to becoming reality…
The 39-year-old Mexican actress, considered the reigning queen of telenovelas, has joined the cast of No Good Deed, starring Idris Elba and Taraji P. Henson.
The thriller revolves around a former DA-turned-stay-at-home mom (Henson) and her two small children who are kidnapped from their home by a mysterious stranger (Elba).
Del Castillo—who starred in Telemundo’s hugely popular telenovelaLa Reina del Sur—will play Elba’s cheating ex-fiancée.
It’s the latest Hollywood role for del Castillo, who received critical acclaim for her performance in La misma luna (Under the Same Moon), guest-starred on CSI: Miamiand had a story arc on Weeds. Up next for del Castillo: playing a transsexual in the film K-11, set for release later this year.
It may be a” man’s man’s man’s world,” according to James Brown…But Kate del Castillo isn’t afraid to make her mark in it. Following her starring role as the most powerful drug trafficker in southern Spain in the popular telenovela “La Reina del Sur,” she’s now preparing for her most awe-inspiring role to date.
The 39-year-old Mexican actress will star as Mousey—a transsexual who controls one of the sections of a Los Angeles County men’s prison—in the dramatic film K-11.
Helmed by first-time director Jules Stewart—the mother of Twilight actress Kristen Stewart— del Castillo will play the physically fit character that likes showing a lot of skin.
The story centers on Raymond Saxx Jr. (Goran Visnjic), a straight record producer who, after a drug-induced blackout, wakes up locked up in K-11, the unit of the prison reserved for gay men and transsexuals who, for their safety, are segregated from the general population. It’s there that he comes across del Castillo’s character, who controls the area.
“I was like, ‘This is sci-fi, almost’” says Visnjic of his first reading of the script for the indie drama. “The character is put in such an extreme situation.”
del Castillo, who filmed the project last summer, has given her character a very distinctive personality. In the film, the telenovela star dons a part of platform heels made of slabs of meat. And, she wears a band on her left wrist that reads “Julio,” the name that reveals the male identity she left behind.
Telemundo’s La Reina del Sur may be getting an English-language makeover…
Fox Television Studios is developing an adaptation of last year’s blockbuster telenovela.
Based on Arturo Perez-Reverte’s bestselling book of the same La Reina del Sur, the telenovela centers on Teresa Mendoza (Kate del Castillo), an innocent young girl from a small Mexican village, whose desire to avenge a personal tragedy leads her to become the most powerful woman in the dangerous world of drug trafficking in Europe.
La Reina Del Sur was Telemundo’s most expensive telenovela ever with a budget of $10 million and became the highest-rated program in the network’s 19-year history, averaging nearly 4.2 million viewers, and more than 2.8 million viewers in the prized Adults 18-49 demographic. In addition, the telenovela’s series finale on May 30, 2011 was the No.1 broadcast program of the night, of any language. Telemundo even launched its first-ever Primetime Emmys campaign for La Reina Del Sur.
La Reina Del Sur isn’t considered a typical telenovela, with critics noting that is feels more like Breaking Bad than One Life to Live. With that in mind, Fox’s English-language adaptation will be developed as a one-hour largely serialized crime drama, said Fox Television Studios president David Madden. He describes it as being “darker, more violent than ABC’sMissing or Revenge.”
Fox Television Studios, primarily a cable player with series like Burn Notice and The Killing, plans to aim La Reina Del Sur at cable networks. “I could see it run on Showtime or FX, but I can also see an ABC version of the show,” said Madden.
The La Reina Del Sur deal “came out of Fox Television Studios’ efforts to find more material out of Spanish-speaking countries and produce more content for Spanish-speaking audiences,” said Madden. It’s part of a larger strategy of targeting Latino audiences by News Corp., which recently announced that it will be launching a Spanish-language broadcast TV network.
Eugenio Derbez is ready for his close-up on English-language television in the States after hosting the Latin Grammys and starring in thecritically acclaimed indie film La Misma Luna opposite Kate del Castillo.
The 49-year-old Mexican comedian/actor, who currently appears as a Mexican gardener in Adam Sandler’s latest film Jack & Jill, will be making his U.S. television debut in Rob Schneider’s new CBS sitcom, ¡Rob!
“[¡Rob! is going to be] a really, really funny series!” says Derbez, who made his television debut at the age of 12 as an extra in a telenovela. “Remember the movie Meet the Parents? Well this is like, Meet the Mexicans!”
iRob! stars Schneider as a bachelorwho marries into an extremely tight-knit Mexican-American family.
In addition to Derbez, the show will star Cheech Marin, Diana Maria Riva and Lupe Ontiveros as the Deuce Bigalow star’s in-laws.
“There’s this culture clash when they arrive,” adds Derbez. “It’s a really funny situation.”
Several episodes of the half-hour comedy have already been filmed and the network plans to debut the show in mid-January.
But Derbez isn’t putting all his acting huevos in one basket. He’s set to costar with Eva Mendes, Espinoza Paz and Raini Rodriguez in the upcoming movie Girl in Progress.
“El Rey del Corrido” Gerardo Ortiz is this year’s king of the Billboard Mexican Music Awards—an awards show dedicated entirely to regional Mexican music, the top-selling genre of Latin music in the United States.
During last night’s awards show at Los Angeles’s Orpheum Theater, the 22-year-old corridor singer won six awards, including Artist of the Year, New Artist of the Year and Male Artist of the Year.
When he wasn’t picking up awards, the Mexican singer, who calls his tunes “progressive corridos,” took the stage to perform “Ese Amor,” his Spanish cover of Bob Marley‘s “Is This Love” led by accordion.
Other award winners included banda and ranchera diva Jenni Rivera, who won Artist of the Year, Female; Larry Hernández; Vicente Fernández and Julión Alvarez y su Norteño Banda.
Mexican telenovela star Kate del Castillo and singer Pedro Fernandez co-hosted the show, which also featured performances by Shaila Durcal, Larry Hernandez and Jenni Rivera.
The first-ever Billboard Mexican Music Awards show will be broadcast on Telemundo on October 27 at 7:00 pm ET.
She played the most powerful drug trafficker in southern Spain in the popular telenovela “La Reina del Sur”… And now Kate del Castillo is preparing to return to the right side of the law.
The 38-year-old Mexican actress is set to guest star on CBS’ “CSI Miami” this Sunday, October 23. In the episode titled “Killer Regrets,” del Castillo will appear as Anita Torres—a Mexican police chief under the police protection from the mysterious assassin who killed her husband.
The role is a complete 180-degree turn for Castillo, who earlier this year starred as Teresa Mendoza in “La Reina del Sur,” which depicts the rise of a young Mexican woman who becomes the most powerful drug trafficker in southern Spain. The telenovela attracted 2.4 million viewers, making it the most viewed premiere for any telenovela on Telemundo. The final episode was the network’s highest rated broadcast in its 19-year history with nearly 4.2 million viewers.
Del Castillo’s “CSI: Miami” episode will air this coming Sunday at 10:00 pm ET.
