Patricio Wills: I return to the presidency of W Studios and devote my life as a producer for Univision and Televisa

Patricio Wills shared on #PRODUprimetime with Ríchard Izarra his return to the helm of W Studios. “I return to that position with Carlos Bardasano and the rest of the team,” he said, after stating that he will dedicate his life as a producer working with Univision and Televisa. He announced that he signed an open contract and that he is very happy to work very closely with Pierluigi Gazzolo, Luis Silberwasser, and with the Televisa team of which he was and continues to be part.

He also announced that W Studios will move to a headquarters in Univision.

He described Bardasano as “his right and left hand”, they have been working together for more than twenty years, and they know each other very well.

W STUDIOS WITH A LIFE OF ITS OWN
Wills commented that W Studios was founded with Univisión, but since he was at Televisa managing the production, there was obviously a conflict of interest. “We agreed that it would be a company owned by Televisa. We let it dormant for a while, as W Studios belonged to Televisa, but it was there. Now that it returns to Univisión, with the merger of Televisa and Univisión, W Studios would have a life of its own again,” he said.

He stated that he is more active than ever, with many projects ahead with W Studios. “It is a professional stage of my life and of the team in which we are perhaps at the best moment, all moments are the best, but for a production professional like me, being at the right time and in the right place is really an honor,” he said.

“So it’s a nice moment, we are making telenovelas for open television in both Mexico and the US, and series for the new streaming ViX that will be launched in the second half of this year.”

PROJECTS IN DEVELOPMENT
W Studios is developing Pantaleón y las visitadoras for ViX+, as well as Travesuras de la niña mala, both based on books by Vargas Llosa. On Travesuras de la niña mala, Wills explained that it will soon begin production so that in no time he will also be able to give details of the casting.

Regarding Pantaleón y las Visitadoras, he said that this kind of story is not for open television. “It is not a telenovela, it has sharp humor, a black humor, the theme of the ‘visitadoras’, in the end, refers to prostitutes, which Vargas Llosa narrates with a marvel of humor because it was very difficult. But with the platform for which I was looking for important titles, I put on the table the acquisition of the rights for this book, and, more or less, in a matter of one minute, Rodrigo Mazón and Pierluigi told me: ‘get it, because that’s the kind of things we want for ViX’. So we started to develop it, I guess we will produce it next year, because it will need a whole period of adjustment work and find who will write it and direct it, among other things,’ he explained.

Travesuras de la niña mala will be recorded in Europe since the story is about a “bad girl” who comes from Peru and settles in Paris and who dedicates to cheating on men. She goes from France to England, then to Japan, then to Spain. “In the adaptation, we decided to stick to the book and used the places where the story happens. Likewise, with Pantaleón y las Visitadoras, the story takes place in a gigantic river in the Latin American jungle and for sure we will be recording somewhere in the Amazon. But we will go with what the book imposes as geography,” he said.

He commented that they have several series and novels going. They are currently working on Travesuras de la niña mala, on Leonardo Padrón’s series La Mujer del Diablo, which will be ready very soon. Then they will go with Pantaleón y las visitadoras. Among others.

As for telenovelas, it is on the air in Mexico Los Ricos También Lloran with very good tuning, and it will be broadcast on Univision sometime in 2022.

View interview here