Originally produced by the Antena 3 channel with a limited budget, this Spanish series around the robbery of the National Currency Factory in Madrid has become, after its takeover by the American company Netflix at the end of 2017, one of the most watched on the premiere global streaming platform.
Such success as the series 'robbers' red coveralls and Dali masks, as well as the revolutionary Italian song "Bella Ciao", have appeared in protests around the world.
"This is the first non-English-speaking series that has turned into such an important global phenomenon", underlines Elena Neira, professor of communication sciences at the Open University of Catalonia.
The characters from Tokyo, Lisbon or Berlin have even managed to keep a large English-speaking audience in suspense which, especially in the United States, is not used to dubbed or subtitled productions.
Unexpected success
"Thanks in part to La casa de papel", Netflix and its competitors "realized that they did not need to produce everything in the United States" to reach a global audience, adds Elena Neira.
Since then, the platform has produced other global hits in a language other than English like "Lupine" or "Squid Game", the first season of which smashed the record for best start in October.
On paper, however, the scenario had "nothing revolutionary", believes Elena Neira.
But the series tells "a very universal story of a struggle between the good guys and the bad guys, where the good guys aren't the ones who seem to be and the bad guys aren't as bad as they look", " with messages about the power of women, camaraderie, the need to rebel, ”she adds.
The Spanish actor Alvaro Morte during the presentation of the last part of the series "La casa de papel", in Madrid on November 30, 2021 GABRIEL BOUYS AFP
Simple but effective ingredients and therefore taken up.
Lupine "contains a lot of elements of La casa de papel in terms of narration: the thief who gets out of it, the thief with the white gloves" with a certain moral and "very intelligent", she points out.
For Alberto Nahum Garcia, professor of audiovisual communication at the University of Navarre, the success of "La casa de papel" is also due to "an alignment of the planets".
Because the series was released "at a time when the distribution has become even more global" and has benefited from "a clearly very addictive production" with endings of outstanding episodes "that the recommendation algorithms value a lot".
Added to this is "a very significant dubbing effort in local languages", on a platform present in more than 190 countries, explains Elena Neira.
Springboard for Spain
All production in Spain, a country whose government wants to make an audiovisual hub in Europe, has benefited from this success by ricochet.
"This has propelled the (Spanish) industry to a place that we did not even dream of because we have always been a country very complex at this level," series creator Alex Piña told reporters on Tuesday.
Building on the success of the series, Netflix chose Madrid to set up its first European studio in early 2019.
La casa de papel has "confirmed that stories can be created in any part of the world and enjoyed anywhere in the world," Diego Avalos, vice president for content for Netflix in Spain and the United Kingdom, told AFP. Portugal, highlighting the strategic importance of Spanish, a language spoken by 500 million people around the world.
Spanish actor Jose Manuel Seda during the presentation of the last part of "La casa de papel", in Madrid on November 30, 2021 GABRIEL BOUYS AFP
Several actors of "La casa de papel" are members of the Netflix team, such as Jaime Lorente and Miguel Herran, who were on the bill for "Elite", another great success of the platform produced in Spain.
Alex Piña signed an exclusive contract with Netflix in 2018 to produce other projects.
And despite the end of the series, Netflix intends to continue to surf on its success and has launched the production of a Korean adaptation with, as a wink, Park Hae-Soo, one of the main actors of "Squid Game" .
© 2021 AFP