Netflix to Give a Global Welcome to 'Dusk Till Dawn' Series, the Brainchild of Mexican-American Director Robert Rodriguez
From Dusk Till Dawn fans, brace yourselves -- not only for the campy horror in Mexican-American director Robert Rodrguez's films and now spin-off TV series, but for the global wave of interest that it will spark when it's available to our friends up north, south, and overseas.
The small-screen version of the horror film franchise, the first scripted drama from the El Rey Network, will drop on Netflix in Canada, Latin America and select European territories later this month, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
"Netflix is taking Robert Rodriguez's new series, 'From Dusk Till Dawn,' to its global network of on-demand channels. The 10-episode hour-long series, based on the vampire horror film franchise Rodriguez created will go out on the El Rey Network in the U.S., premiering on Tuesday, March 11."
On March 12, Netflix will offer the premiere episode of Dusk Till Dawn on its online services in Canada, the U.K., Ireland, the Netherlands and the Nordic territories in Europe.
On March 19, the show will go out on Netflix in Latin America and will be labeled "a Netflix original series" in those territories.
THR adds that "subsequent episodes will be available on a weekly basis. This is in contrast to Netflix' release strategy with its in-house productions, such as 'House of Cards,' for which it puts all episodes of a single series online at once to encourage binge viewing."
Rodriguez is thrilled to be able to have an international reach again but this time for his small-screen series -- his big-screen films have generated a cult-like following.
"I am excited about working with Netflix and Miramax to build an international audience for our series," Rodriguez, said in a statement, THR reports. "This property has always resonated for viewers around the globe and we believe that it will be just as relevant for this new generation of fans."
The exciting new series, which features Wilmer Valderama, Eiza Gonzalez, Zane Holtz, Don Johnson and D.J. Cotrona, among others, will mark the first piece of original programming from the network that Rodriguez created to appeal to young Latino Americans and "features a mix of feature films and series fousing on action, sci-fi and grindhouse genres."
The English-langauge channel, El Rey network, "targets Latino audiences in the U.S. and features a mix of feature films and series focusing on the action, sci-fi and grindhouse genres. Rodriguez and FactoryMade Ventures control the El Rey network with a minority stake held by Univision Networks & Studios."
"The show ('From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series') is awesome. It takes Quentin's original characters and re-imagines their storylines and trajectory, introduces new characters and will surprise the audience with its twists and turns. I'm really proud of it, it's edgy and cool freaking scary. The whole season takes place from dusk til dawn. It's going to be one hell of a night," Rodriguez said in an earlier Reddit AMA.
Based on the 1996 movie, "From Dusk Till Dawn," starring George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, Harvey Keitel, Salma Hayek, Danny Trejo and Juliette Lewis, which reeled in about $25 million in the box office, is about "two criminals and their hostages who unknowingly seek temporary refuge in an establishment populated by vampires, with chaotic results."
What was it like for Rodriguez to tackle a TV series versus a film, and what are the pros and cons?
"The film, you only have a limited time to tell a story, and any character that Quentin creates, they can live and breathe for so much more than that," Rodriguez told Entertainment Weekly Radio. "And so I decided to take the idea of the movie, retell it in a way, add new characters and have different things happen to characters you know and love, and really set up the story to sustain itself for several seasons. We get a lot more into the mythology of the temple where they go, and build up that mythology. You see some sign posts to what the movie had offered story-wise, but it goes in completely different directions."
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