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Juan Andrés García Ropero, “Bropi,” Movistar Plus’ new director of content from May 2026, re-adjusts himself in his seat on a Zoom call.
“I’ll sit with my best side showing, this profile,” he jokes. For an executive
in one of the most pressured jobs in Spain, whom its film and TV industry desperately hope it will continue to invest in movies and shows with an ambition which has yielded “Querer,” “The New Years” and “The Anatomy of a Moment” in TV and “Sirat,” “The Beloved” and “La Bola Negra” in movies, García Ropero seems remarkably relaxed.
He does, however, have good reason. When Variety interviewed García Ropero in late July, he already had on his hands not so much a feature as a movie phenomenon.
Recipient of a 16-minute standing ovation and a shared best director award at Cannes, queer epic “La Bola Negra” reflects the extraordinary aspirations of not only writer-director-producers Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi but also producer Movistar Plus, the biggest Spanish pay TV/SVOD operator.
Those ambitions even two months ago were scaling globally. Netflix had set a 47-day U.S. theatrical window for “La Bola Negra” the longest for any movie in the streaming giant’s history, as the film also appears to feature among the streamer’s awards priorities for the fall.
That breakout success is part of larger traction. In a bigger picture, over 2025-26, apart from France, no country in the world apart, not even the U.S., has had more Cannes main competition contenders than Spain.
Three of the five movies are Movistar Plus originals: Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “The Beloved,” starring Javier Bardem, “La Bola Negra” and 2025’s “Sirāt,” a two-time Oscar nominee and Cannes Jury Prize winner. A fourth, Pedro Almodovar’s “Bitter Christmas,” was the subject of a muscular Movistar Plus pre-buy.
A significant part of the conversation at the 74th edition of Spain’s San Sebastián Film Festival, running Sept. 18-26, looks set to be driven by Movistar Plus does next, the Spanish premiere of “La Bola Negra,” a screening of “The Beloved,” and world premieres of Movistar Plus series “El castillo” and new movie “5 More Minutes.”
With all three movies screening on Sept. 19, this converts that day into a kind of Movistar Plus Super Saturday.
‘La Bola Negra’
Unveiling its first movie slate in January 2024, Movistar Plus talked about creating “event auteur movies.” No Movistar Plus film fits better that description to date than “La Bola Negra.”
Boasting big stars – Penelope Cruz is an extended cameo performance as a cabaret star rousing and arousing the troops, and Glenn Close as a modern-day Hispanist academic – “La Bola Negra” braids three inter-connected stories of gay identity, desire, repression and legacy set in 1932, 1937 and 2017, shot in 35 mm, each story mixing different film registers. It has big Spanish stars, such as Miguel Bernardeau (“Elite,” “Querer”), an enormous Spanish ensemble, and “the idea of a super production that is auteur-driven but also very queer,” as Ambrossi told Variety.
“Given its production standards, how it’s shot and told, ‘La Bola Negra’ becomes a great event. It will make a lot of noise in San Sebastian and I’m convinced it will mark a milestone in Spanish cinema, a great success for Movistar Plus and and Los Javis, taking them into another dimension,” says García Ropero.
Sold out worldwide by Goodfellas, “La bola negra” will see Elastica Films launch its nationwide theatrical release on Sept. 25. On Wednesday, the film was announced as Spain’s Oscar race entry for International Feature.
‘The Beloved’
“The Beloved” (“El ser querido”) also features as a 2026 standout Spanish feature. Framing a monumental performance by Javier Bardem as an Oscar-winning director seeking reconciliation with his daughter (Victoria Luengo) casting her in his latest movie, “The Beloved,”a story about the story people tell, even to deceive themselves, drew excellent reviews at Cannes: “Bardem is “a formidable presence, Luengo “exudes a fascinating quality of pensive engagement” in the film’s memorable opening scene.” The Beloved has also grossed €3.0 million ($3.45 million) in Spain from an Aug. 28 bow.
Movistar Plus Strategy Going Forward
The two films’ roll-out comes just months after the second management shakeup in just over a year at Movistar Plus+ with Daniel Domenjó replaced as CEO by Alfonso Gómez Palacio, to to date head of operations of Movistar Plus+ parent Telefónica in Latin America, outside Brazil. Gómez Palacio has won fame for balancing the books and improving margins. Given that, Spain TV and film industry feared that his appointment woild signal a pull back from production.
So early July news took the industry by storm: Movistar Plus announced that over the next three years it will double original Spanish series annual output from eight to 16 titles, while adding another 10 titles via co-production and licensing deals.
In early May, Movistar Plus launched a cut-price Free Plan: Series-Cinema subscription offer at just €4.99 ($5.78) a month
“We are suddenly seeing promise in (and putting money behind) scaled local streaming services to ‘take on’ the U.S. giants. Arguably Sky/ITV are angling for the same,” says Guy Bisson. “We are at a point in the industry where legacy players (and legacy usually goes hand in hand with geographic footprint limitations) see that they have to scale or die and that is now being reflected in content strategy.”
“Movistar Plus is still the foremost home for Spanish creativity. We aim to build on that sensation even more with a sense of local ambition, but looking for titles which can have international relevance,” García Ropero tells Variety.
Justifying the production hike, Movistar Plus noted that “Originals attract more clients and generate more engagement.”
García Ropero cites the case of YouTube-podcast Victoria Martín’s debut “Many People Need to Die,” a withering take on Millennial angst which has proved to be the most watched series of the year on Movistar Plus. “It’s been an audience and new subscriber driver,” says García Romero, noting that Movistar Plus has already ordered a Season 2.
Financial website El Confidencial claims that Movistar Plus will now double content investment to €200 million ($232 million) a year. Garcia Ropero declined to comment on exact figures but recognized that the pay TV/streamer will be upping not only content volume but investment. The increased TV show hike indeed guarantees that.
One major key to Netflix and HBO Max growth in international has been their bundling in international markets through partnerships with local distributors, such as HBO Max’s alliance in Germany with RTL+.
Having insisted on not partnering with rivals in Spain, Movistar Plus has now tapped “Ella maldita alma,” a young Spanish priest romantic melodrama, from Plano a Plano and Mediaset España, “33 days” from Atresmedia; and live audience sitcom “La Casa Nostra,” a hot on Catalan public broadcaster 3Cat, made available on Movistar Plus in either its original Catalan or dubbed into Castilian Spanish.
“In the final analysis, we’re aiming for clients to find on Movistar Plus what they need,” said García Ropero, noting that buying “33 Days” is a “very natural step,” given that it is a fiction recreation from Carles Porta, already a true crime fixture on Movistar Plus.
The Spanish streamer’s plans for film production have still to be announced. Their strategy, however, may not differ from series, since Movistar Plus seeks the same effect: Subscribers and fidelity for its pay TV and streaming service.
“Above all, what we’re trying to do is to bet on the best talent,” not on genres or formats but creators with their own voices,” says García Ropero. “That’s been the policy in recent years and we want to continue.”
‘El Castillo’
That can be seen in both “El Castillo” and “5 Minutes More.”
San Sebastián has become a privileged launchpad for series which go on to glean international renown: 2024 hosted world premieres of “Querer” and “Celeste,” both Movistar Plus+ Original Series, which went on to win the two biggest prizes at 2025’s Series Mania, Europe’s most important TV festival.
In 2020, one of the received titles, films included, was Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “Riot Police,” written with Isabel Peña, his career-long co-scribe, and producer-writer Eduardo Villanueva, a partner at Sorogoyen’s label El Caballo Films.
“[San Sebastián Festival director] Jose Luis Rebordinos is a fan of our series and all of the work over these years to bring cinema talent to elevate our original Spanish fiction series,” says García Ropero.
Bearing out a creator-driven approach, as in “La Bola Negra,” with “El Castillo” and Movistar Plus+ is looking to take talent to the next level. A six-part series, “El Castillo” marks Peña first series without Sorogoyen, catching Spain’s sex trade as it transforms from small road-side establishments to organized crime.
Told from a triple point of view, part procedural, part personal odyssey of a victim, Colombian Claudia, part the rise – and one suspects fall – of a prostitution kingpin, “El Castillo” looks high on two factors many viewers now look for in a series: Authenticity and relevance.
“Again, I think “El Castillo” will make a lot noise, prove a conversation driver at San Sebastián,” says Garcia Ropero.
‘5 More Minutes’
A top Spanish stand-up comic, “5 More Minutes” writer-actor Berto Romero has risen the ranks at Movistar Plus from with star turns on late nights shows “Buenafuente” and “Leit Motiv,” to a first fiction series, “Look What You’ve Done,” a parenting comedy and then “The Other Side,” a comedic-horror-thriller. “5 More Minutes” delivers another genre mashup, a comedic sci-fi survival thriller as an on-the-rocks couple are caught in time loop at a rural getaway.
“The Other World,” Season 2 of “The Other Side,” will bow later this year with Romero co-directing for the first time.
“It’s not easy to blend comedy, horror and parapsychology,” says Romero. “Berto likes this mix of different genres and ‘5 More Minutes’ is a magnificent example.”
