Netflix officially opened the doors to its new Italian headquarters in Rome with a press event on Friday, unveiling its upcoming local-language slate, which will include a new series adaptation of the Italian classic The Leopard.
Netflix founder and co-CEO Reed Hastings joined local execs, including vp of Italian original series Tinny Andreatta, director of international original film Sara Furio, and Italian nonfiction manager Giovanni Bossetti at the event, which was hosted by Italian stand-up Michela Giraud and live-streamed from Rome Friday afternoon.
“Today we celebrate our new Italian home, our growing business in Italy, the creative community we are so honored to be part of, and all of the fantastic Italian stories on our upcoming slate,” said Hastings. “The breadth and variety of our Italian slate perfectly represents our ambitions – new series, films, documentaries and unscripted shows from Italy’s most prestigious creatives and exciting new voices. Stories that are Made in Italy and watched by the world.”
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A highlight of Netflix’s upcoming Italian slate is a new series inspired Il Gattopardo (The Leopard), Tomasi from Lampedusa’s classic, epic Italian novel which was adapted by Luchino Visconti in the equally epic, and classic, 1963 film. The Serpent director Tom Shankland will helm the series update of the novel, the story the 19th century Prince of Salina Prince of Salina and his family.
Other series coming up from Netflix’s Italian operations are I Hate Christmas, a holiday series from Fremantle’s Lux Vide, an untitled animated series from Tear Along The Dotted Line creators Zerocalcare and Lotto Gang from BIM Produzione and Feltrinelli Originals, a limited series loosely based on the true story of the biggest lottery scam in Italian history.
On the feature side, new Netflix Italian films include the period heist movie Robbing Mussolini, the revenge film My Name is Vendetta, and romantic comedies Love & Gelato and Under the Amalfi Sun. The later, from Lucky Red), is the sequel to 2020’s Under the Riccione Sun.
Non-fiction projects include a crime docu-series Wanna from Fremantle, Indigo Film’s sports documentary Running for the Truth: Alex Schwazer about the Olympic champion race-walker, as well as Banijay’s reality TV show Summer Job.
Despite sluggish subscriber figures in its North American market — CFO Spencer Neumann said the streamer would be “pulling back” on some of its spending over the next two years after disclosing a loss of 200,000 subscribers during its most recent quarter — Netflix continues to expand internationally. The company recently opened a new Eastern European headquarters in Poland, adding to its European offices in London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Madrid, Stockholm and Istanbul. Netflix suspended its service, and all ongoing production, in Russia in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. At the time of the Feb. 24 invasion, the streamer said it had around 700,000 subscribers in Russia.
