Atresmedia Cine announces 2026 releases and filming

Atresmedia Cine, the production giant behind Spanish broadcast network Atresmedia, has announced a 2026 release schedule and plans to shoot 10 films over the next year.

That’s important. Since Spain first required local networks to invest 5% of their revenue in European films and 60% in domestic production in 2001, the country’s two free-to-air TV operators, Atremedia and Mediaset Espana, have Through Tremedia Cine and Telecinco Cinema, it has not only been the main production partner for a significant number of the most important films produced in Spain this century, but the network’s parent company also puts significant marketing muscle behind the films.

The result has been an improvement in Spanish audiences’ view of local films, which since the Spanish Civil War until the 1960s had been dismissed as “españoladas” (films whose local references and relevance do not compensate for second-rate production standards).

Even in the world of streaming services, the impact of broadcast network investment and marketing remains important. Through 2025, Atresmedia Cine’s films have grossed 25 million euros ($29.5 million) in Spain, accounting for more than 30% of the total annual theatrical box office revenue for Spanish films, it announced on December 24.

Thanks in large part to its continued production partnership with Bowfinger International Pictures, led by Santiago Segura and producer María Luisa Gutiérrez, The Father There Is Only One 5 grossed 13.4 million euros ($15.8 million) for distributor Sony in 2025, making it by far the highest-grossing Spanish film in 2025.

In The Father There Is Only One 5, the final of a series of family stories that Segura co-wrote, directed and starred in, playing a down-on-his-luck father, he now faces the opposite end of empty-nest syndrome: a nest full of six children, the eldest daughter’s boyfriend, the father and wife’s mother, and other in-laws. And no one seems to be thinking about quitting.

Timing is everything, Gutierrez explained in a conversation with Variety on stage at Ventana Sur in Buenos Aires this month.

In 2024, Sony asked Bowfinger to produce a Spanish version of Death at a Funeral for release during Easter week in 2025, a tight turnaround. However, director Gutiérrez recognized that some of Spain’s top actors were on vacation and would be available in the summer. Released on schedule and co-produced with Atremedia Cine, “Un Funeral de Locos” grossed 3 million euros ($3.5 million) at the Spanish box office, ranking seventh among local box office grossers in 2025.

‘Trent President’: Spain’s biggest box office bet

It’s hard to predict which films Atresmedia Cine will premiere in Spain next year will make the most money.

In early December, Segura announced a March 13 release date for “Torrente Presidente,” the sixth installment in the film series that began in 1998 with “Torrente, The Foolish Arm of the Law.” The film series has been hailed by Variety as a “hugely entertaining comedy-thriller” about an “enthrallingly un-PC”, perpetually inebriated, self-centered sexist, racist, and violent man. Atavism – Spaniards have spent their democracy denying that it represents themselves or modern Spain.

At the time of Torrente President’s release, Segura said little about its storyline. But while this election kicks off a long run-up to Spain’s general elections, which must be held by August 2027, one big question is whether Spain’s far-right party Vox will eventually form part of a coalition government at federal, regional and municipal levels.

One of Torrente’s most extraordinary achievements this year has been its appeal across Spain’s harsh political divide. It remains to be seen whether the 6th edition of this story will still be satirical, or will savage Vox. One scene leaked online shows Torrente addressing a crowd of followers from a balcony above the canvas banner of his Nox party. “I’m ready to pack my bags to leave Spain on March 14,” Segura joked on Spain’s comedy talk show “El Hormiguero.”

“La Bora Negra”, another highlight of 2026

In total, Atresmedia Cine plans to release more than 10 films in Spain next year. Another most anticipated production is “La Bola Negra,” written and directed by Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo, who also directed the HBO Max US hit “Veneno” and France Arte’s hit “La Mesías,” cementing their status as one of Europe’s most exciting young film and TV creative duos.

Produced by Movistar Plus+, Suma Content Films, France’s Le Pacte and Atresmedia Cine, distributed by Spain’s Elástica Films and distributed internationally by Goodfellas, “La Bola Negra” co-stars a large cast with Penelope Cruz and Glenn Close. It weaves together the interconnected lives of three men from three different eras, lives inextricably linked by sexuality and desire, pain and legacy. The film also incorporates and is partially inspired by the unfinished novel of the same name by Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, but it is the first to feature an explicitly gay protagonist. Set in 1932, during the Spanish Republic, and 1937, when gay men were imprisoned and executed by Francisco Franco’s forces, including Lorca himself, in 2017 La Bora Negra enters Spanish history from the underexplored angle of queer heritage. There is also a large Spanish chorus cast of lesser-known and new actors. There are two possible reasons for setting the release date for October 2nd, right after the San Sebastian Festival, where both the film’s focus and cast will gather.

What Atresmedia Cine’s 2026 release schedule says about current Spanish cinema

“There’s Only One Father” has topped the Spanish box office rankings in five of the past seven years. Unsurprisingly, seven of the 12 films that Atresmedia Cine has confirmed will be released in theaters in 2026, or at least next year, are comedies.

However, they are carefully separated. Two powerful IPs go head to head. Filmed in 2026, “A Little Something Extra,” an adaptation of France’s #1 film of 2024, surpassed all Hollywood blockbusters with over 10.8 million admissions. This equates to approximately $80 million in box office revenue. No wonder, in 2023, without Father, the highest-grossing Spanish film of the year was Javier Fesser’s Champion Next, another comedy starring non-professional actors with disabilities, which grossed 11.9 million euros ($14 million).

Another Atresmedia Cine title scheduled for 2026, Benetton Family +2, is a sequel to the 2024 original, which grossed 4.1 million euros ($4.8 million) at the Spanish box office.

Atremedia Cine’s other two titles can be described as family comedies. One is “Abuela tremenda,” starring Elena Irureta (“Patria”) as a fighting grandmother and aimed at a mature audience, and “Tres de más,” a parenting farce with Kira Miro (“Alpha Males”), made for a younger audience.

The social satire “Torrente Presidente” has the widest readership. La Roja, also filmed in 2026 and subsequently titled La Roja, is aimed at an adult audience and is about the Spanish cricket team, which is made up of mostly foreign-born players. Director Marcel Barrena said it is a kind of “Full Monty” about integration, promising the same combination of ultimately exalting real-life social observance that he so well captured in “The 47,” which shared this year’s Spanish Academy Goya’s best picture award and grossed 4 million euros (about 470 million yen) in Spanish theaters.

Billed as a black comedy, “Cada dia nace un listo,” about a painting heist, represents director Aranxa Echevarria’s latest work, and the ETA undercover thriller “Undercover,” shared with this year’s best film Goya, was a staggering 9.7 million euros ($11.4 million) hit in Spain in 2024.

Elsewhere, given the uncertainty in Spain’s theater market, Atres Media is hedging its bets, producing the real-life sports biopic “Karateca,” a Spanish wingsuit base-jumping adventure starring Carlos Cuevas (“Merli”), Miguel Bernardo (“Elite”) and Miguel Ángel Silvestre (“30 Coins”), and the teen musicals “A Fuego” and “Viaje Al.” “Pais de los Blancos” is a biographical film about human rights activist Usman Umar.