Spanish success
Money Heist flopped overseas, but became a global phenomenon on Netflix
Money Heist Netflix
When La Casa de Papel premièred as a two-part miniseries on Spain's Antena 3 in the spring of 2017, critics praised the thrilling caper — about a group of criminal masterminds who pull off a daring heist at the Royal Mint — for its absorbing pilot, powerful premise and boundary-pushing plot. But by the time the second half premièred that fall, enthusiasm (and viewership) had cooled enough to render the 15-episode series a flop.
That would have been the end of La Casa de Papel, known in North America as Money Heist, if not for Netflix, which picked up the show at the end of 2017, repackaged it into shorter episodes across two seasons, and ordered third and fourth instalments.
The show's presence on the streaming platform, where the first half of its fifth and final season has arrived, elevated Money Heist into a global cultural phenomenon that has inspired memes, Halloween costumes and one very memorable line in a chart-topping Latin pop song.
Money Heist wasn't Netflix's first Spanish-language original (that would be Club de Cuervos, a Mexican dramedy released in 2015), but it was the first to find a decidedly international audience. Its popularity prompted Netflix to invest in other series set in Spain, including the prep-school thriller Elite, which premièred to notable buzz in 2018 and has been renewed for a fifth season.
Money Heist, set to drop its five remaining episodes this December, is rightfully celebrated as a forebear to other non-English language hits including Lupin, a French mystery thriller, and the Mexican whodunit Who Killed Sara?
By all accounts, the show's post-Netflix success came as a surprise to its cast and creator Álex Pina — not least because it launched with little promotional fanfare on the platform. In a 2020 Netflix featurette called Money Heist: The Phenomenon, cast members including Jaime Lorente and Miguel Herrán recall noticing their follower counts rapidly increasing on Instagram after the show's quiet streaming debut. That was the first of many signs the series, which won an international Emmy for best drama in 2018, had resonated with audiences around the world.
After part 3 arrived on the platform in 2019, Netflix said the new instalment had been watched by more than 34 million households, breaking a record for a non-English-language title. Last year, Money Heist became an early entry in Netflix's Top 10 list, drawing 65 million viewers — more than the ubiquitous and controversial Tiger King, according to the streamer.
Netflix, which is selective about the metrics it shares publicly, has not released information on how viewers take in the Spanish-language series — dubbed or via subtitles — but Álvaro Morte, who plays the enigmatic ringleader known as the Professor, recently told Variety he realized the show's vast reach after learning that some viewers had been spurred to overcome the language barrier. “I've heard that people around the world started studying Spanish because of Money Heist, just because they wanted to hear our real voices,” he told the magazine. “You can't help but be proud of that.”