Madrid-based Zeta Studios, the producer behind worldwide hit series “Élite,” HBO Max’s “García!,” Movistar Plus’ “Reyes de la noche” and Prime Video’s “Días Mejores,” has teamed with double San Sebastián Golden Shell winner director Isaki Lacuesta for TV drama project “El hijo del chófer” (“The Chauffeur’s Son”).
Lacuesta will direct and write the series alongside writer-director Isa Campo, and “Días mejores” creator and “Fariña” scribe Cristóbal Garrido.
The project is currently in a development and looking for financing.
Left of field filmmaker Lacuesta, San Sebastian’s top prize winner with “The Double Steps” (2011) and “Between Two Waters” (2018), both co-written by Campo, has recently dipped his toe into TV fiction creation with Movistar Plus anthology series “Apagón” (“Offworld”), five stories written and directed by top movie Spanish directors, which also included Campo.
Zeta Studios CEO Antonio Asensio and “Élite” producer Paloma Molina will produce “The Chauffeur’s Son,” a political thriller based on same title best selling novel by Catalan writer and essayist Jordi Amat.
Set in the Catalonia presided by Jordi Pujol from 1980 to 2003, where the mass media built the image of an oasis free of corruption, Amat, takes as a common thread the life story of journalist and lawyer Alfons Quintà, reflected a perverse juncture of power, money and influence peddling that marked an entire era.
Quintà (1943-2016), a Catalan Roger Ailes, founded the Catalan public broadcaster, was friend of the powerful but also a sexual harasser who ended up killing his wife.
Published by Tusquets in Spanish and by Edicions 62 in Catalan, the novel sold since its Nov. 2020 publication more than 60,000 copies, becoming one of the greatest recent editorial hits.
Last year, Zeta Studios acquired the book’s audiovisual adaptation rights via Scenic Rights agency.
“The power of the mass media and its ability to generate controversy or not around different current issues, is one of the most universal elements that can be observed in our project,” said Xavi Toll, head of scripted development at Zeta Studios, who is presenting “The Chauffeur’s Son” to the international market at Mipcom.
“The political thriller nature of the project along with the topic of media corruption are elements which we foresee as appeaingl to a wide and large audience (mainly men and women, over 25), who, despite potential a lack of familiarity with the specific history and real-life characters of this project, can be reached by awakening a sense of intrigue for the dramatic plot,” he said.