New York, .- The history of the musical phenomenon Menudo will begin filming this summer in Mexico, which was its main market, and in Puerto Rico, where it emerged, and the series will be distributed next year by Amazon Prime Videos, told Efe Carlos Nido, president of the Piñolywood Studios production company.
“We already have 15 scripts, we are going to recreate their story in terms of this boy band that started in Puerto Rico, which became famous worldwide and reached stardom,” said Nido, whose company collaborates on this project with Somos TV, Endemol Shine Latino and Boomdog.
For “Get on My Moto-The Story of Menudo”, which will have 15 chapters of an hour each, they have the group’s creator, Edgardo Díaz, the band choreographer Joselo Vega and the former member of the Ricky Meléndez group, who now He is a lawyer, as resources for making scripts.
“The first thing was to sign Diaz to tell us his story and Myraida Chavez (journalist), who made a series of interviews and hired a scriptwriter,” recalled the president of Piñolywood, a company created in 2015 in Puerto Rico focused on movies made on the island, with the benefit of the local film law.
The first band of Hispanic boys that had that world-wide reach was formed initially by the brothers Fernando and Nefty Sallaberry Valls, along with the brothers Carlos, Óscar and Ricky Meléndez, that sent their first album in 1977.
Menudo achieved success, especially during the 1980s, becoming the most popular Latin American teen musical group of the time, but its fame was declining and in 2009 it dissolved after 39 different singers were part of the band.
It was the platform for the launch of the careers of Ricky Martin and Draco Rosa, who joined the band in 1984, where they established a great friendship. Rosa was until 1987 in Menudo and Martin left the group two years later.
Last year the production companies announced that they would take Menudo’s career to television, from the 70s, when it was created, to the moment they achieved fame.
Nido also told Efe that Piñolywood has evaluated the market of movies and television series for companies such as Netflix and Amazon, among others, and they realized that “the series have become very popular.”
He recalled that they did a series about the Puerto Rican reggaeton Nicky Jam and that now they work in Menudo’s.
“They are Puerto Rican content that has global platforms.” The Nicky Jam series that we launched on Netflix last year was number one in most markets in Latin America and many in Europe, and the same will happen with Menudo. Menudo was Mexico and the two, Brazil, “he said.
“What we want is to take Puerto Rican stories that have global reach and project them to be successful on screen,” he argued.
The auditions for Menudo’s series will also be on an unspecified date this year, he said, adding that the boys should know how to sing and dance because they have plans to form a band.
“One of the ideas we have is to set up a group, we plan to audition in Puerto Rico and with the finalists to make a television program to choose those who would be part of the new band,” he said. (EFEUSA)
