 The firms' first release features telenovela star Barbara Mori |
Two independent film firms are teaming up to bring a series of movies to the growing Latino audience in the US. Lions Gate Entertainment and Panamax Films intend to produce six to eight releases in the next 18 months, industry newspaper Daily Variety said.
Lions Gate, the firm behind recent US box office horror hit Saw II, has made a name targeting niche audiences.
The first release in January, La Mujer de mi hermano, features soap opera stars Barbara Mori and Christian Meyer.
The romantic drama La Mujer de mi hermano, or My Brother's Wife, has already been released in cinemas in Mexico.
Dance trend
The companies intend to bring the popular Hispanic soap opera - or telenovela - format to the big screen.
Among the other productions in the pipeline is Reggaeton, a film set against the Puerto Rico dance music trend of the same name.
Panamax Films is a new firm formed by Jim McNamara, the former head of Spanish-language broadcaster Telemundo.
"Our main goal at Panamax is to take what we learned from our experience in television and apply it to the film business," he said.
"We aim to make films with high production values and natural built-in hooks."
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