ABC's Revenge to Be Adapted as Telenovela on Azteca
Who likes an extra dose of camp with their Revenge?
While ABC’s primetime soap has presented quite a few over-the-top and/or campy stories over the past four seasons, things are about to get a whole lot more ridiculous. Mexican multimedia conglomerate Azteca is producing a telenovela adaptation of our favorite Hamptons-set drama, which will air as part of Sony Pictures Television’s worldwide programming strategy later this year on Azteca 13 and Azteca America.
Details are slim, but casting rumors seem to be pointing toward actress and telenovela producer Christian Bach as Victoria Grayson (played by Madeleine Stowe on ABC). Bach is an iconic telenovela star, with her first role in 1979’s Los ricos también lloran. So far, there’s no word on other cast members. We’re most curious to see how the story is going to change. Is the show going to still be set in the Hamptons or will it move to Rio? We can’t imagine how a telenovela would portray the East End, but it could be a lot of fun.
For the uninitiated, telenovelas are limited-run serials that tell romance novel-style stories. The most well known telenovelas are Latin American and air in their respective countries and on Spanish-language American television networks, such as Telemundo. They tend to have simple sets, melodramatic music and beautiful stars. While Revenge is certainly full of beautiful people and melodrama, it’d be hard to imagine Grayson Manor looking cheap.
Telenovelas and American television series have long intermingled. Desperate Housewives, for example, was remade for Univision as Amas de Casa Desesperadas, while shows like Hamptonite Susan Lucci‘s Devious Maids, Ugly Betty and Jane the Virgin are adaptations of telenovelas. AMC’s hit show Breaking Bad was also adapted into a daily, telenovela-style serial called Metastasis , which aired on UniMás last year.
The Revenge telenovela (will it be called Venganza?) is set to air some time in 2015.
Catch up on America’s Revenge with our Weekly Hamptons Revenge Recaps here. Read our weekly Revenge Top 5 lists here.