Netflix has sealed exclusive streaming rights in Colombia for its 16-episode adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” industry outlet Variety reported this week. The first eight episodes premiered on 11 December 2024, and the company says filming of the concluding instalments began in May 2025.
Variety adds that the exclusivity sidelines free-to-air stalwarts RCN and Caracol, fuelling speculation that a linear window will open only after Netflix’s hold ends. Keeping the project in Spanish and on Colombian soil, the streamer has placed the series at the centre of a ten-title local slate slated for the next two years.
The Macondo set in Tolima injected about COP 225 billion (roughly US$57 million) into the national economy and relied on a crew producers describe as 99 percent Colombian. Directors Alex García López and Laura Mora say the task required “images that contain the beauty and depth of the book” without softening its darker moments. Screenwriter Camila Brugés recalls that “whenever we lost our way, the novel had the answer.”
Netflix last week donated annotated scripts to the National Library of Colombia, calling the gesture a cultural “return” to García Márquez’s homeland. Nielsen’s July Distributor Gauge shows Netflix at 8.3 percent of total U.S. television viewing, underscoring the leverage behind the Colombian pact.
Legal specialists note that Colombia is tightening labour and tax rules for international platforms, a trend echoed by proposed local-content quotas in South Africa, suggesting that future exclusivity deals could face sharper scrutiny.
While RCN has pivoted toward alliances with ViX and Caracol is co-producing titles such as “Eva Lasting” with Netflix, neither broadcaster has yet secured a slice of Macondo. Cultural commentators told The Guardian that the novel remains the country’s “national poem,” making terrestrial access a matter of public interest.
