Sergio Pizzolante de Secuoya Studios
Sergio Pizzolante, who has just been appointed president of the new Secuoya Studios Commercial & Distribution, a joint venture between Secuoya and his company CTMOBS, will be responsible for securing the financial resources for all projects and creative units of the studio, including series that his main focus, films, unscripted and originals, in addition to co-productions, strategic alliances, executive productions and the subsequent distribution of these contents around the world, either directly or through partners and third parties. Pizzolante will also be a shareholder of the company. “The most comforting thing about this agreement with Secuoya is that our coincidences are enormous. We have a very similar vision,” he said to PRODU.
In his six years as an independent, after his time at Sony and E! Entertainment, Pizzolante has focused on developing intellectual property on universal stories that travel to multiple regions, and, although he respects the work-for-hire model, he has never presented an original. So he set out to look for projects of this nature and found El Zorro, a project for which they have just secured 100% for its financing, 33 million euros -about US$36 million- without compromising the backend. “We own 100% of the intellectual property among the multiple partners: Secuoya, Andy Kaplan, Jesús Torres, myself, and John Gertz, who is the owner,” he indicated.
“I came to Spain looking for partners and I came across David Martínez who was a blessing. We immediately started working together, and including El Zorro, we developed other projects like School of the Americas that is coming soon, Nina and some others that I prefer not to reveal for now. On that journey, David tells us that he is going to join Secuoya, and for us it was –of course- a significant upgrade working with this group that was just betting on setting up a studio. In a very organic way, I got closer and closer to the studio, seeking financing for my own projects, specifically El Zorro. During that time, I signed a first-look deal with Pantaya, and the benefit of that contract was transferred to Secuoya, so we placed Montecristo as well as La Isla which was sold to Pantaya and Amazon,” he explained.
Pizzolante assured that they are open to originals, so they brought Pablo Barrera to join the team focusing on work for hire and originals. “Now I really have a production company behind me, so it makes sense.”
Last year they did Camp Newton, a children’s series co-produced with Dopamine for Disney Spain, 100% financed through licenses and which was sold in the US and Latin America. This year they are working on the six-episode premium miniseries, Montecristo, in co-production with Pantaya and Hemisphere and already sold it to Pantaya in the US and to LatAm as well. It was also financed 100% without rendering the IP and will begin recordings in May between Madrid and the Canary Island. In July, begins the filming on El Zorro, which was sold to Amazon for the US, LatAm, and Spain, and to a television station in Spain, and in September they will start recording La Isla on Easter Island, a co-production between Secuoya and Miguel Asencio’s Tiki Pictures.
“We’re at full speed. Some co-productions are already developing. We have another one with Residente of Calle 13 and Sony Music Latin are with us; we have several projects with NSQ-Studios, the company of Jesús Torres and Glenda Pacanins. We have it all, the series pipeline is super robust, especially scripted, and always preserving the IP, that’s the mandate. We are open to originals, pitching some, but what I like is developing business models where we can share the IP,” he pointed out.
