Money Heist

Money Heist is a Spanish heist crime drama media franchise created by Álex Pina. It is centered around a television series which followed two long-prepared heists led by the Professor. The narrative of the series is told in a real-time-like fashion, relying on flashbacks, time-jumps, hidden character motivations, and an unreliable narrator (Tokyo) for complexity. The franchise was launched with the two-part, 15-episode limited television series Money Heist, which premiered on Spanish network Antena 3 on May 2, 2017. Despite little ratings success during its initial run (in spite of its positive reviews), the series went on to become an international hit when the first part was released outside Spain on Netflix in late 2017. As a result of the series' success, Netflix bought the rights from Antena 3's parent company, Atresmedia Televisión, and ordered 26 additional episodes that were released across three parts. The fifth and final part was released across two volumes on September 3 and December 3, 2021, respectively. Following the original series' conclusion, a South Korean remake, Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area, was released across two parts on June 24 and December 9, 2022, respectively; and a spin-off series, Berlin, is in development and slated for a December 2023 release. Both the original series and its South Korean remake enjoyed consistently positive reviews over the years. In addition to the television and streaming series, two making-of documentary films, Money Heist: The Phenomenon and Money Heist: From Tokyo to Berlin, were released between 2020 and 2021. A video game was also announced to be in development. Background The initial idea for Money Heist dates back to sometime during creator and head writer Álex Pina and director Jesús Colmenar's years of collaboration at Globomedia, where they first coincided in 2008. In spring 2016, after production of the second season of Locked Up ended, the two left Globomedia to start their own production company, Vancouver Media, and their two options for the company's debut project were a comedy project and a heist story for television, before ultimately settling for the latter. Pina and Colmenar started developing the series, then titled Los desahuciados, alongside former Globomedia and Locked Up colleagues, as a passion project to try new things without outside interference. Pina eventually pitched the series to Atresmedia's then-Head of Fiction, Sonia Martínez, who told him to "do it".