Five seasons of Money Heist weren’t enough for Netflix. After tapping in near the middle of the hit show’s global run, the streamer has signed on for more content from the show’s creator, with a spinoff, a reboot, and a new series well on the way. What’s more dramatic than a multi-million dollar crime caper? Well, a pandemic…
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Álex Pina has extended his global exclusive deal with Netflix—the Professor may be gone, but there’s still more in store from the mastermind behind the crime. Pina’s new high-concept series will be inspired by the wealth disparities of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain.
The untitled series (La casa de COVID could work, hypothetically) will be set in a luxury underground bunker. There, Spain’s wealthiest citizens retreat from the unfolding global crisis above ground, hoping to let the whole thing blow over together. A slew of pandemic-themed shows and films like The Bubble and Songbird have been ordered in the aftermath of COVID. It appears Pina’s spin on quarantining will join them, targeting the 1 percent.
Pina says that inspiration struck when he read a Spanish newspaper article published in October 2021, which detailed the quest of rich Spaniards to purchase bunkers after the coronavirus pandemic swept the globe.
“Some of the new shelters that were being built were luxury homes in the subsoil,” Pina explained. “Up to 15 floors down, with exclusive services, such as cinema, pool, spa, gym and common gardens, with water and food to survive more than five years. An underground community for 75 people. And then we thought about what life would be like there. Social, family and romantic relationships, in an underground shelter to which they had hastily and exclusively fled.”
Netflix isn’t about to let go of Money Heist, one of the streamer’s top performers, either. The series, which was the most-watched non-English-language drama on Netflix before Squid Game, already has a spinoff in the works. Pina is working on Berlin, a prequel focused on the backstory of the character played by Pedro Alonso in the original series. Netflix plans to release Berlin in 2023.
The saga will continue internationally with a Korean version of Money Heist, which has attached Squid Game actor Park Hae-soo set to play Berlin’s role. It’s all in the Netflix family! This news all comes after Netflix’s global exclusive overall deal with Pina, one of the company’s first with a non-English-language creator.
