Damián Alcázar, a lead in “Narcos” as Pablo Escobar’s successor, Cali mob boss Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, is attached to star in “Rookies,” the TV series debut as a writer-director of top Colombian film director José Luis Rugeles.
Breaking out with Cannes 2015 Un Certain Regard title “Alias María,” Rugeles, one of Colombia’s most prominent film directors, has also helmed of late 2022’s “Rebellion” and “The Awakening,” a best selling title at last December’s Ventana Sur.
A prize winner at May’s Conecta Magaluf-Mallorca, “Rookies” (“Oficina de Detectives”) is set up at Rhayuela Films, a top Colombian production house behind the Wild Bunch-sold “El Páramo” and first HBO Max series in Colombia, “A Thousand Fangs.”
Now being brought to market in Latin America at this week’s Bogotá Audiovisual Market (BAM), “Rookies” stars Alcázar as Toro, one of two strangers who discover they are half-brothers the same day they inherit a detective agency. Trapped by the agency, they discover their father didn’t die of old age: he died because he knew too much. And now they know too much too.
Díaz, the other half brother, is played by Christian Tappan, star of “La Reina del Sur” and more recently Netflix hit “The Hijacking of Flight 601.”