{"id":899855,"date":"2026-10-30T11:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T11:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/899855\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T11:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T11:46:10","slug":"domingo-corral-on-his-hbo-deal-and-why-quality-tv-can-be-commercial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/899855\/","title":{"rendered":"Domingo Corral On His HBO Deal And Why Quality TV Can Be Commercial"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFormer Movistar Plus content boss Domingo Corral<\/a> sees his production deal with HBO<\/a> Max as the route to realising an ambition to make independent TV and film that is both mainstream and premium in quality.<\/p>\n

\n\tHis shock exit from the Telefonica-owned Movistar after 11 years in May 2025 was followed in March with the announcement that his new career as an independent producer was taking off with a HBO production deal in place<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRight now, I don\u2019t plan to make many things,\u201d says Coral in an exclusive interview with Deadline at the MIA Market<\/a> in Rome. \u201cI have this deal, and I feel very lucky because I\u2019ve found a place where they share the same vision that I do. It\u2019s very important that you share the same vision with the commissioner.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnnounced at Series Mania this year, S\u00eerat exec producer Corral will work HBO Max originals exec Sarah Aubrey and Casey Bloys, both now part of senior content team at the merged Skydance business, to create scripted TV an film productions. The first project is about the disappearance of petty criminal El Nani (aka Santiago Correla) in 1980s Spain<\/a> during the country\u2019s transition out of dictatorship and into democracy.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAfter my exit [from Movistar], you always feel bruised,\u201d he adds. \u201cYou think, \u2018My God, what\u2019s going to happen now?\u2019 But I felt very lucky. For me, HBO is not just a client; it\u2019s a group of people who share the same vision and very similar sensibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Oliver<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tDomingo Corral produced \u2018Sir\u00e2t\u2019 at Movistar Plus+<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMatch Factory<\/p>\n

\n\tGuiding Corral\u2019s outlook is his experience at Movistar, where the Spanish production community fell in love with him and his commissioning team for their approach of demanding festival-quality storytelling with the mainstream ambition of attracting big audiences. In that sense, he meshes well with the mantra at HBO. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI ran original production at Movistar for 11 years within a telecommunications company \u2013 that\u2019s the interesting thing,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m so grateful to that company for the opportunity it gave me. I had to work with engineers and finance people \u2013 people who understood numbers \u2013 and for 11 years, we made original productions at Movistar. Do you think people who look at numbers all the time would have allowed that to happen if we weren\u2019t making quality mainstream content?<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe weren\u2019t making niche content simply to win awards. We won many awards, but the primary objective was to retain subscribers and attract new ones, so I believe you can make quality mainstream content. I don\u2019t see any contradiction. HBO is a very good example.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s helpful that Corral spent 15 years at Turner Broadcast System, which for many years sat next to HBO in the Time Warner stable. He left there for Movistar in 2014 having risen to General Manager and SVP of Turner Iberia, overseeing operations for CNN, TCM, Boing, Cartoon Network and TNT in Spain and Portugal.<\/p>\n

\n\tIndustry support<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Corral\u2019s exit from Movistar Plus was announced last year, there was an outpouring of anger, grief and concern from Spain\u2019s creative community that is rarely afforded to a commissioning executive.<\/p>\n

\n\tAn open letter signed by close to 200 members of the Spanish industry<\/a>, including Pedro Almod\u00f3var and Pen\u00e9lope Cruz, called out the Telefonica-owned Movistar, saying Corral and his team had championed a strategy \u201cbased on respect for creators, close collaboration with independent producers and listening to all the partners they have worked with, without ever neglecting their focus on entertainment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMovistar was so rattled that Corral\u2019s effective replacement on the cinema side, Guillermo Farr\u00e9, would later tell Deadline<\/a>, \u201cThe goal is clear, the direction of what Domingo started works on many different levels.\u201d Speaking privately to those in the Spanish production community, the jury is still out whether his legacy of hits such as S\u00eerat, La Peste, La Mes\u00edas and currently smash La Bola Negra is being honored.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCorral greenlit \u2018La Bola Negra\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJulia Carballada\/Netflix\/Everett Collection<\/p>\n

\n\tMovistar \u2013 which has now dropped the confusing extra \u2018+\u2019 after the \u2018Plus\u2019 in its name \u2013 won\u2019t comment officially on the exit of Corral and his team last year, but we understand that, internally, the position is the departures were part of a wider organizational restructure that impacted several managers, and that the company feels it maintains a strong position within Spain\u2019s audiovisual community.<\/p>\n

\n\tCorral himself remains in the dark about his departure. \u201cThe vision I believed in was successful \u2013 not just for me, but for my team, so I don\u2019t understand why they made that decision,\u201d he says. \u201cThey made management changes and other things, but you would have to ask them. I don\u2019t know why I was fired. I didn\u2019t ask.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCorral is speaking to Deadline in Rome directly after appearing on a panel<\/a> in which he whipped a partisan crowd up by passionately advocating for commissioners and gatekeepers to make ambitious moves or risk missing the next La Bola Negra.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI strongly believe in what I said on stage,\u201d says Corral, a veteran Spanish industry whose urgent and open conversational style is the antithesis of the measured and media-trained lines from many other executives.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult for me to behave any other way, because when you create a project, you need to have a vision,\u201d he says. \u201cThat vision isn\u2019t interchangeable. I can\u2019t execute a vision I don\u2019t believe in, and it wasn\u2019t only me. I had an amazing team working with me. I was leading the project, but I was surrounded by incredibly talented people. Almost all of them were fired as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for Movistar Plus+<\/a>\u2018s output since he left, Corral stays diplomatic. \u201cHonestly, I\u2019ve moved on to something new,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m very excited about my new life, and I don\u2019t look backwards. What I can say is that I wish them the best, because they\u2019re very important to the Spanish audiovisual market.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPlans for the future<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"The<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCorral (left) on the \u2018Can Excellence Survive the Mainstream\u2019 panel at MIA<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDeadline<\/p>\n

\n\tCorral\u2019s new life outside the corporate world. In San Sebastian last year when speaking for the first time after his Movistar exit, he quipped<\/a> seeing \u2018independent producer\u2019 next to his name on stage felt weird \u201cbecause I still don\u2019t know if I\u2019m an independent producer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAmusingly at MIA, Corral is handed a new name for his fledgling production operation, with a giant screen at the Westin Excelsior Hotel erroneously naming him head of \u2018Good Day Productions\u2019 (a Google search shows that is the company name of another Domingo Corral, a multi-disciplinary artist based in Oakland, California.) <\/p>\n

\n\tCorral took the misnomer in good humor, chuckling as he repeated his line about unease about his newfound independent producer status.<\/p>\n

\n\tCorral\u2019s overriding belief is that quality, awards-chasing, festival-style fare can \u2013 and should \u2013 also be mainstream. \u201cThere are many things without quality that fail,\u201d he says. \u201cWhy do we have to associate the word \u2018quality\u2019 with something that isn\u2019t commercial? People want good food, good clothes, good television shows and good films. We should all assume that quality films and series can be mainstream.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat puts into question the assumption quality productions are usually difficult to get made. \u201cDifficult is a different story, yes,\u201d says Corral. \u201cBut it\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Movistar Plus content boss Domingo Corral sees his production deal with HBO Max as the route to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":899856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[242637,88,1035,119934,242638,3662,92],"class_list":["post-899855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-domingo-corral","tag-entertainment","tag-hbo","tag-mia-market","tag-movistar-plus","tag-spain","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=899855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/899856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}