Atresmedia Cine Announces 2026 Releases, Shoots 

Atresmedia Cine, the production powerhouse of Spanish broadcast network Atresmedia, has unveiled its 2026 release slate and plans to shoots 10 movies over next year. 

That matters. Since 2001 when Spain first obliged local networks to invest 5% of revenues in European films and 60% of that in national productions, its two free-to-air TV operators, Atresmedia and Mediaset España, have not only become major production partners on a substantial number of the most significant films made this century in Spain via Atresmedia Cine and Telecinco Cinema but their network parents have put their weighty marketing muscle behind the movies. 

The result has been to update for the better Spanish audiences’ view of local movies, dismissed since the Spanish Civil War through the ‘60s as “españoladas” – movies whose local reference and relevance did not compensate for second-rate production standards.

Even in a streaming service world, broadcast networks’ investment and marketing punch still count. Over 2025, Atresmedia Cine productions punched €25 million ($29.5 million) at Spain’s box office, accounting for an over 30% share of Spanish films’ total annual theatrical gross, it announced Dec. 24. 

That’s thanks in large part to an ongoing production alliance with Bowfinger International Pictures, headed by Santiago Segura and producer María Luisa Gutiérrez, behind “Father There Is Only One 5,” which scored €13.4 million ($15.8 million) for distributor Sony in 2025 in Spain, by far the biggest box office trawl for any Spanish film. 

The final instalment of the numerous family saga co-written and directed by and starring Segura as a hapless father, in “Father There Is Only One 5”  he now confronts the opposite of an empty nest syndrome – a full nest of six children, his oldest daughter’s boyfriend, his father and wife’s mother and other in-laws. And nobody seems to be thinking about leaving. 

Timing is all, Gutiérrez explained in an on-stage conversation with Variety at this month’s Ventana Sur in Buenos Aires.  

In 2024, Sony asked Bowfinger to produce a Spanish version of “Death at a Funeral” to release Easter Week of 2025: a tight turnaround. Gutiérrez realized, however, that some of Spain’s top actors would be available in the summer, since on holiday. Released on time and co-produced with Atresmedia Cine, “Un funeral de locos” took €3.0 million ($3.5 million) at the Spanish box office, ranking No. 7 among 2025 local bows. 

“Torrente President”: Spain’s Biggest Box Office Bet

Among Atresmedia Cine’s next year Spanish premieres, bets are off as to which will make most money. 

Early December, Segura confirmed a March 13 date for “Torrente Presidente,” the sixth part of a movie franchise which began in 1998 with “Torrente, the Dumb Arm of the Law,” hailed by Variety as “deliriously non p.c.” and “a tremendously enjoyable comedy-thriller” dominated by the kind of character – a perpetually inebriated, self-centered sexist, racist scumbag and blow-hard throw-back – which Spaniards had spent democracy disavowing as not representative of themselves nor modern Spain.

Dating “Torrente President’s” release, Segura said little about its plot-line. It will open, however, in the long run-up to general elections in Spain, which have to take place by August 2027, with one big question whether Spain’s far-right Vox will end up forming part of coalition governments at federal, regional or municipal levels. 

One of “Torrente’s” most extraordinary achievements down he year’s has been to appeal across Spain’s bitter political divide. It remains to be seen if the saga’s sixth iteration’s satire still does so, or savages Vox. One scene leaked online shows Torrente addressing a crowd of followers from a balcony above a canvas banner for his party, Nox. “I have my bags ready to leave Spain on March 14,” Segura joked on Spanish comedy chat show “El Hormiguero.” 

‘La Bola Negra,’ Another 2026 Highlight 

In all, Atresmedia Cine will see over 10 of its movies released in Spain next year. Its other most anticipated is “La Bola Negra,” written and directed by Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo, behind HBO Max U.S. pick-up “Veneno”  and Arte France hit “La Mesías,” which burnished their credentials as one of the most exciting young film-TV creative duos in Europe. 

Produced by Movistar Plus+, Suma Content Films, France’s Le Pacte and Atresmedia Cine, distributed by Elástica Films in Spain and sold internationally by Goodfellas, “La Bola Negra” co-stars Penelope Cruz and Glenn Close in a large cast. It interweaves the interconnected lives of three men in three different eras, depicting lives intimately linked by sexuality and desire, pain and legacy. The film also incorporates and is partly inspired by Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca’s unfinished novel of the same title, his first work with an explicitly gay protagonist. Set in 1932, during Spain’s Republic and in 1937, when gay men were imprisoned and executed by Francisco Franco’s forces, such as Lorca himself, and in 2017, “La Bola Negra” comes in at Spanish history from a little-explored angle of queer legacy. It also has a large Spanish choral cast of little known actors newcomers; which could be two reasons for the release date, Oct. 2, just after the San Sebastián Festival, a platform for both the film’s focus and cast. 

What Atresmedia Cine’s Slate of 2026 Releases Says About Current Spanish Cinema

“Father There Is Only One” topped Spanish film box office charts for five of the last seven years. Not surprisingly, seven of the 12 titles confirmed by Atresmedia Cine to open in cinemas in 2026, or at least shoot next year, are comedies. 

They’re carefully set apart, however. Two play off strong IP: “A Little Something Extra,” one 2026 shoot, adapts France’s 2024 No. 1 movie, beating out all Hollywood blockbusters, selling more than 10.8 million admissions – the equivalent of an around $80 million gross. Not for nothing, in 2023, one year when there was no “Father,” the highest-grossing Spanish film of the year was Javier Fesser’s “Championext,” another comedy starring non-professional actors with disabilities, which scored €11.9 million ($14.0 million).

Another Atresmedia Cine title set for 2026, “Beneton Family +2,” is a sequel to a 2024 original, which scored €4.1 million ($4.8 million) at the Spanish box office. 

Two other Atresmedia Cine slate titles could be described as family comedies: “Abuela tremenda,” toplining Elena Irureta (“Patria”) as a battling grannie, targeting mature audiences, and “Tres de más,” a parenting farce with Kira Miró (“Alpha Males”), made for a younger crowd. 

Social satire “Torrente Presidente” has the broadest of audiences. “La Roja,” another 2026 shoot and a title to follow, targets an adult audience in a movie about Spain’s cricket team, made up largely of players of foreign origin. A kind of “Full Monty” about integration, director Marcel Barrena has said, it promises the same mix of finally uplifting real-life social observance which he delivered so well in “The 47,” a film that shared a best picture Spanish Academy Goya this year, while hitting €4.0 million ($4.7 million) at Spanish theaters. 

Billed as black comedy, “Cada día nace un listo,” a painting heist  caper, reps the latest from Arantxa Echevarría, whose ETA infiltration thriller “Undercover” shared this year’s best picture Goya and made a remarkable breakout €9.7 million ($11.4 million) in Spain off a 2024 bow.

Elsewhere, given the uncertainties of Spain’s theatrical market, Atresmedia is hedging its bets, producing a real life sports bio, “Karateca,” a Spanish wingsuit BASE jumping adventure starring Carlos Cuevas (“Merlí”), Miguel Bernardeau (“Elite”) and Miguel Ángel Silvestre (“30 Coins”), teen musical “A Fuego” and “Viaje al país de los blancos,”  a biopic of human rights activist Ousman Umar.