Picture: Netflix
Money Heist remains incredibly popular for Netflix following the release of Berlin, which made waves on Netflix, scoring 22.3 million views (146.40M hours) in its first week on the platform. The show’s creator, executive producer, and writer Alex Pina has teased that more could be on the way.
In case you missed it, Berlin is the brand new spin-off series to Money Heist that sees the return of Pedro Alonso in his iconic role of Berlin to look back at the character’s life before the events of Money Heist. Esther Martínez Lobato and Álex Pina of Vancouver Media created the spin-off.
Following the release of Berlin, Alex Pina spoke to the small London-based trade TBI Magazine about the franchise’s future and other wide-ranging topics about the entertainment industry at large.
Pina ultimately said that Money Heist’s future as a franchise depends ultimately on “how the Money Heist universe is accepted” following the release of Berlin but cited it as a growth opportunity for his company.
Pina added that they cut off the main series at the height of its popularity but does imply that it could come back in some form. From our interpretation of his answer, he seems to imply that the main show itself could return for a heist in the form of a sixth season.
Here’s the full quote:
“We stopped shooting Money Heist in its fifth season when the series was at its peak. We decided not to do another part at that time, or a new heist, and we really made that decision because the series was at its peak.
The fifth season got the highest rating of them all, so it’d have been easy to shoot seasons six and seven, but we chose not to do them at that point, to stop the franchise and instead come back with a spin-off. It is now a good time to find out if the audience still wants it and whatever happens will have an important effect on our growth.”
That popularity definitely looks to still be there with the strong week one debut for Berlin, plus the fact that Money Heist has also seen a resurgence in the top 10s following the release of the spin-off.
Beyond Berlin, Netflix produced a Korean spin-off of the show, which served more as a remake, featuring all the same characters from the Spanish counterpart. This show ultimately received mixed reviews, and the status beyond the 12 episodes released as part of Season 1 is currently unknown.
One spin-off often cited for the show is an Indian Bollywood spin-off of some description given how popular Money Heist was there. If you can quite believe it, Money Heist has spent 862 days in the Indian TV top 10s in total. Úrsula Corberó, who recently appeared in Netflix’s new movie with Kevin Hart called Lift, also spoke about the popularity of the show in India in an interview with India Today.
Of course, a second season of Berlin shouldn’t be ruled out, either. The series was notably not uploaded to Netflix as a Limited Series but rather as a Season 1, and the show’s ending does leave the door open for more.
Beyond Money Heist, Pina’s Sky Rojo recently wrapped up with its final batch of episodes. White Lines came to a swift end after a single season, and the only other show announced to be in development came back in 2022 and was described as a pandemic series “set in a luxury underground bunker.”
Would you like to see more Money Heist or more of Berlin? Let us know in the comments.
Rating: TV-MA
