J.A. Bayona Producing & Presenting the Netflix Psychological Horror “Crazy Old Lady”

Posted on March 7, 2024 by Tom Castaneda

J.A. Bayona is preparing for his crazy next project…

The 48-year-old Spanish filmmaker, the man behind the two-time Oscar-nominated Netflix hit Society of the Snow, will produce and present the psychological horror Crazy Old Lady (Vieja Loca),

The film will star Goya, Cesar and Cannes best actress winner Carmen Maura (Volver) and Berlinale Silver Bear winner Daniel Hendler (Lost Embrace).

Bayona is producing the Spanish-language psychological horror-thriller with Studiocanal, Peliculas La Trini, Primo Content, Bambu Producciones and La Union De Los Rios.

The project is written and directed by Martín Mauregui (Carancho), who is directing his first solo feature after a successful career as a screenwriter working with directors such as Pablo Trapero, Santiago Mitre and most recently as dialogue writer on Bayona’s Society Of The Snow.

Currently filming in Buenos Aires, the Spanish-Argentinian co-production “focuses on Pedro, a man who receives a desperate message from an ex-girlfriend asking him to look after her senile mother, Alicia. What seems like a simple mission soon becomes his worst nightmare. Pedro needs to escape; but Alicia won’t let him…”

The Impossible, Jurassic World and The Orphanage director Bayona said today: “Martín Mauregui’s script hooked me from the very beginning. He masterfully uses the genre to immerse the audience in the perverse delirium of a woman with a past as dark as certain recent events in her country’s history. As a producer, this project is also fulfilling my lifetime dream of working with the incredible Carmen Maura who plays the role of Alicia.”

True story survival thriller Society Of The Snow won best picture and director for Bayona at this year’s Goya Awards. The film took home 12 prizes in total and is among Netflix’s best foreign language performers ever, scoring 51 million views in its first 11 days on the service.

J.A. Bayona’s “La Sociedad De La Nieve” to Have Its World Premiere at Venice Film Festival

Posted on July 22, 2023 by Tom Castaneda

J.A. Bayona’s latest project will have its big debut in Italy…

The Venice Film Festival will close with the world premiere of the 48-year-old Spanish Goya Award-winning filmmaker’s Netflix Spanish-language survival thriller La Sociedad De La Nieve (Society of the Snow).

The latest film from The Orphanage and The Impossible director charts the iconic true story of a 1970s rugby team whose plane crashes on a glacier in the Andes.

The few passengers who survived the crash find themselves in one of the world’s toughest environments.

The story was told by Frank Marshall in 1993 film Alive.

The Out Of Competition screening will take place on September 9 in the Sala Grande of the Palazzo del Cinema after the awards ceremony.

Starring in the Spanish-language film are Enzo Vogrincic, Matías Recalt, Agustín Pardella, Esteban Kukuriczka and Tomas Wolf.

The film is produced by Belén Atienza, Sandra Hermida and Bayona. The screenplay comes from Bayona, Bernat Vilaplana, Jaime Marques and Nicolás Casariego from the novel by Pablo Vierci. Director of photography is Pedro Luque.

Bayona is also known for movies A Monster Calls (2016) and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018), and for directing on series including Penny Dreadful (2014-2016) and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022).

Society of the Snow is his fifth feature film, and his first to be shot in Spanish in sixteen years.

J. A. Bayona to Direct Netflix’s Disaster Film “Society of the Snow”

Posted on November 29, 2021 by Tom Castaneda

J. A. Bayona is preparing for a disaster…

The 46-year-old Spanish Goya Award-winning film director will direct the Spanish-language disaster film Society of the Snow for Netflix.

Based on the book La sociedad de la nieve by Pablo Vierci, the film is set in 1972, charting the true story of what happens after an Uruguayan Air Force flight transporting a rugby team to Chile cashes on a glacier in the Andes. Only 29 of the 45 passengers survived the crash, finding themselves in one of the world’s toughest environments, forced to resort to extreme measures to stay alive.

Bayona, whose credits include The Impossible, The Orphanage and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, has written the screenplay with Bernat Vilaplana, Jaime Marques and Nicolás Casariego.

Producers are Belén Atienza and Sandra Hermida.

The film will shoot in Sierra Nevada (Andalucía, Spain), in Montevideo (Uruguay) and in various locations in the Andes (both in Chile and Argentina) including El Valle de las Lágrimas, the location where the real incident took place.

The cast will include Enzo Vogrincic Roldán, Matías Recalt, Agustín Pardella, Tomas Wolf, Diego Ariel Vegezzi, Esteban Kukuriczka, Francisco Romero, Rafael Federman, Felipe González Otaño, Agustín Della Corte, Valentino Alonso, Simón Hempe, Fernando Contigiani García, Benjamín Segura, Jerónimo Bosia.

“It was during the documentation process for The Impossible that I discovered Society of the Snow, Pablo Vierci’s fascinating chronicle about the tragedy of the Andes,” said From J. A. Bayona. “More than ten years later, my fascination for the novel remains intact and I am happy to face the challenge that lies ahead: To tell one of the most remembered events of the 20th century, with all the complexity that implies a story that gives so much relevance to the survivors as well as to those who never returned from the mountains. I also face it in Spanish, a language that I excitedly return to after 14 years without filming in my own language, and with a team of young Uruguayan and Argentine actors, whom I’m totally thrilled with.”

Sanchez to Make Directing Debut with Fox’s Sci-Fi Thriller “Marrowbone”

Posted on July 9, 2016 by Tom Castaneda

Sergio G. Sanchez is preparing to go behind the lens…

The 42-year-old Spanish screenwriter is set to make his directing debut with Fox’s upcoming sci-fi thriller Marrowbone.

The psychological thriller is being executive produced by J.A. Bayona, who directed Sanchez’s script for The Orphanage and The Impossible, which Sanchez co-wrote.

Marrowbone centers on four children who hide from the world after their mother’s death on a farm that holds a terrible secret.

Anya Taylor-Joy, Mia Goth, George Mackay and Charlie Heaton co-star.

Focus Features to Release Bayona’s “A Monster Calls” in October

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Tom Castaneda

It looks like J.A. Bayona will have a Monster October…

Focus Features will release the 41-year-old Spanish filmmaker’s fantasy drama A Monster Calls on October 21, one week later than originally planned.

Written by Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls follows a boy who seeks the help of a tree monster so that he can cope with his single mother’s terminal disease. The monster tells him stories to help him cope with his life, though he has difficulty understanding the point of the bizarre tales. The boy doesn’t get along with his grandmother, which is unfortunate because he will have to live with her when his mother passes away.

Felicity Jones, Sigourney Weaver, Toby Kebbell, Lewis MacDougall and Liam Neeson star.

Bayona’s previous feature The Impossible played during awards season 2012 and focused on a family in peril during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Thailand.

Martínez-Lázaro’s “Spanish Affair” Becomes the Top-Grossing Spanish Title of All Time

Posted on April 30, 2014 by Tom Castaneda

It’s official… Emilio Martínez-Lázaro is responsible for Spain’s all-time highest-grossing film.

The Spanish director’shit film 8 apellidos vascos (Spanish Affair) has broken Spanish box-office records, becoming the top-grossing Spanish title of all time, outranking The Impossible, with more than $61.5 million in sales and sitting behind only Avatar as the second-best performer in Spain.

Written by Diego San Jose and Borja Cobeaga, the film turns on Rafa, who’s never once thought of leaving his beloved Seville in Spain’s deep south until he meets Amaia, from a village in the Basque Country, in Spain’s deep North. Rafa is willing to perform the impossible to conquer her: leave Seville or pretend to be Basque.

The romantic comedy, starring Karra Elejalde, Clara Lago and Alberto López, has entrenched itself at the No. 1 spot in the weekly box-office rankings for the full seven weeks it’s been in theaters, with more than 7.5 million tickets sold. It’s the only Spanish title ever to stay in the top slot for seven consecutive weeks.

In its seventh weekend, the film produced by Telecinco Cinema and LaZona Films, earned €3.4 million, or €9,700 per screen, accounting for some 44 percent of overall box-office revenue.

The film has led Spain to post its best domestic films’ market share ever, with homegrown fare cornering 27 percent of ticket sales as of April 20, according to Rentrak Spain.

Focus Features to Release the Bayona-Directed “A Monster Calls” In October 2016

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Tom Castaneda

Juan Antonio Bayona’s Monster project will call on American audiences in October 2016…

Focus Features has announced plans to release A Monster Calls, the film directed by the 37-year-old Spanish filmmaker, on October 14, 2016.

Based on the award-winning children’s fantasy novel by Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls centers on a young boy who attempts to deal with his mother’s illness and school bullies by escaping into a fantastical world of monsters and fairy tales.

Ness wrote the novel based on an original idea by the late Siobhan Dowd, and he and illustrator Jim Kay won Britain’s prestigious Carnegie Medal and Greenaway Medal in 2012, presented to the year’s best children’s literature in the United Kingdom.

Ness is adapting the screenplay from his novel.

Bayona’s last project, The Impossible, earned him a Goya Award for Best Director in February 2013.

Bayona to Direct the Film Adaptation of “A Monster Calls”

Posted on March 10, 2014 by Tom Castaneda

Juan Antonio Bayona has landed a monster project…

The 37-year-old Spanish filmmaker, whose most recent film The Impossible earned him five Goya Awards, including Best Director, will next direct the film A Monster Calls.

It’s a film adaptation of the children’s fantasy novel of the same name by Patrick Ness from an original idea by Siobhan Dowd.

Set in present-day England, it centers on a boy who struggles to cope with the consequences of his mother’s terminal cancer; he is serially visited in the middle of the night by a monster who tells stories. Dowd suffered from terminal cancer herself when she started the story and died before she could write it.

The film adaptation is already on course to begin production this fall for a 2016 release.

Ness adapted the script his Carnegie Medal– and Greenaway Medal-winning work.

The film is being financed by River Road Entertainment and Participant Media. Meanwhile, Focus Features has committed $20 million to release A Monster Calls.

While Bayona is separately attached to helm a sequel to the zombie saga World War Z this film will come first.

Pablo Berger’s “Blancanieves” Wins Big at the Goya Awards

Posted on February 18, 2013 by Tom Castaneda

Pablo Berger’s Blancanieves has proven to be the belle of the ball at this year’s Goya Awards…

The 49-year-old Spanish director’s silent, black-and-white film, a retelling of the Snow White story, earned 10 statues, including the top prize for Best Film, at the Spanish Film Academy‘s annual awards show, Spain’s equivalent of the Academy Awards.

Maribel Verdu, who said she’s “grown to enjoy playing the bad guy,” won her second Goya for her role as the evil stepmother in Blancanieves. The 42-year-old Spanish actress edged out Naomi Watts, Penélope Cruz and Aida Folch for the award.

Blancanieves’ re-imagined Snow White, Macarena Garcia, was named New Actress. It’s the 24-year-old Spanish actress’ first starring role.

Paco Delagado, currently nominated for an Oscar for his costume design work for Les Miserables, won the Goya for his work on Blancanieves, which included the creation of 18 different costumes for Verdu’s character.

Meanwhile, Juan Antonio Bayona’s dramatic The Impossible, which has broken box office records in Spain, scored five awards, including the Goya for Best Director.

Bayona brought down the house when he left the stage after receiving his Goya to present it to Maria Belon, the mother of the real-life family that survived the 2004 tsunami upon which the film is based.

Here’s the complete list of winners:

Film
Blancanieves

Director
Juan Antonio Bayona for The Impossible

Actor
Jose Sacristan for The Dead Man and Being Happy

Actress
Maribel Verdu for Blancanieves

Original Screenplay
Pablo Berger for Blancanieves

Adapted Screenplay
Javier Barreira, Gorka Magallon, Ignacio del Moral, Jordi Gasull and Neil Landau for Tad, the Lost Explorer

Supporting Actor
Julian Villagran for Grupo 7

Supporting Actress
Candela Pena for Una Pistola en Cada Mano

Honorary Goya
Concha Velasco

Production Design
Sandra Hermida Muniz for The Impossible

Artistic Director
Alain Bainee For Blancanieves

Photography
Kiko de la Rica for Blancanieves

Special Effects
Pau Costa and Felix Berges for The Impossible

Wardrobe
Paco Delgado for Blancanieves

Editing
Bernat Vilaplano and Elena Ruiz for The Impossible

Sound
Peter Glossop, Marc Orts, Oriol Tarrago for The Impossible

Original Score
Alfonso Villalonga for Blancanieves

Original Song
No Te Puedo Encontrar from Blancanieves

New Actor
Joaquin Nunez for Grupo 7

Makeup and Hair
Sylvie Imbert and Fermin Galan for Blancanieves

New Actress
Macarena Garcia for Blancanieves

New Director
Enrique Gato for Tad, the Lost Explorer

Animated Feature Film
The Adventures of Tadeo Jones

Documentary Film
Sons of the Clouds, The Last Colony

European Film
Untouchable (France)

Ibero-American Film
Juan de los Muertos (Cuba)

Animated Short
Jaime Maestro for El Vendedor de Humo

Fiction Short
Esteban Crespo Garcia for Aquel no Era Yo

Documentary Short
Sergio Oksman for A Story for the Modlins

Bayona to Helm Space Film for Warner Bros.

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Tom Castaneda

Juan Antonio Bayona has reportedly landed his next Hollywood project…

The 37-year-old Spanish filmmaker, who earned rave reviews for directing Naomi Watts to an Oscar nomination in The Impossible, has been set to helm the still-untitled space film from Forrest Gump scribe Eric Roth for Warner Bros., according to Deadline.com.

Bayona previously earned a Goya Award for Best New Director for helming The Orphanage.

He’s currently nominated for the Goya Award for Best Director for helming The Impossible, which was based on the true story of one family’s experience during the 2004 tsunami.

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