News

ViX+, the fledgling Spanish-language SVOD from TelevisaUnivision, is dipping into literary classics once more with the modern retelling of Alexandre Dumas’ popular revenge tale, “The Count of Monte Cristo.”

The news follows the Jan. 20 bow of ViX+’s Anna Karenina adaptation, “Volver a Caer” with Kate del Castillo. Last year, ViX+ unveiled an adaptation of Nobel Prize laureate Mario Vargas Llosa’s “Travesuras de la Niña Mala” (“Bad Girl”).

In an exclusive first look, ViX+ unveils footage of the six-part series, simply titled “Montecristo,” with William Levy (“Resident Evil: The Final Chapter”) playing the enigmatic lead.

Produced by Spain’s Secouya Studios, “Montecristo” follows Alejandro Montecristo, a mysterious figure whose past and considerable fortune are unknown. Montecristo is the founder and CEO of a successful new tech company that has sparked the interest and envy of many, including Fernando Alvarez Mondego, a businessman with close ties to the Spanish aristocracy...

If the movies have taught us something is that nothing good ever comes from dinner parties. So when the seven friends in Manolo Caro’s Perfect Strangers get together for an evening of food and drinks, one can’t help but squirm a bit in preparation of what’s to come. That feeling of “something’s coming and it won’t be good” is validated when the hostess Eva (a flawless Cecilia Suárez), who also happens to be a psychologist, proposes they play a game: in order to avoid being rude to each other during dinner while checking their phones, they will all just lay their phones on the table and make the texts, social media notifications, and calls they receive, a part of the conversation.

Except for Eva’s husband Alonso (Bruno Bichir), most of them decide to play and the night goes from the stuff of romantic comedies...

Less than a year after it was released in his native Italy, Paolo Genovese’s smash hit “Perfect Strangers” inspired a Greek remake. Within two years, there were nearly a dozen other remakes, including versions made in Spain, South Korea, France, Hungary, China, and India, with still more films planned in Poland, Germany, Qatar, and Sweden. (Wondering where the American version is? The Weinstein Company snapped up English-language rights before the company collapsed.)

Now Mexico is getting in on the act. Manolo Caro’s take on the lively chamber play is a modern comedy of manners that may hinge on the influence of cell phones and the internet, but chronicles emotions and twists that don’t need technological fluffing. The setup of Caro’s “Perfect Strangers” — released as “Perfectos desconocidos” in Mexico late last year, now arriving in the United States care of Lionsgate’s Hispanic arm, Pantelion Films — adheres...