Midnight Family, the series
Two acclaimed Latin American documentaries from recent years, the 2019 American-Mexican Midnight Family by Luke Lorentzen and the 2020 Chilean The Mole Agent / El agente topo by Maite Alberdi, have been adapted into new series by Apple TV+ and Netflix, respectively, with their streaming releases set for this fall.
Apple TV+ is transforming the gripping US-Mexican documentary Midnight Family into a 10-episode Spanish-language medical drama of the same name. The original documentary follows the Ochoa family, who operate a private ambulance service in Mexico City, and their struggle to balance financial pressures with providing care in a demanding industry.
The series, set in Mexico City and starring Joaquín Cosío, Renata Vaca, and Diego Calva, reimagines this story through Marigaby Tamayo, an ambitious medical student by day who spends her nights saving lives in her family's privately owned ambulance. Alongside her father Ramón and siblings Marcus and Julito, Marigaby serves millions by addressing extreme medical emergencies.
The adaptation is led by showrunner and director Natalia Beristáin, with Julio Rojas and Ariel Award winner Gibrán Portela behind the creation. Produced by Juan de Dios Larraín and Pablo Larraín through Fabula—the studio behind the Oscar-winning A Fantastic Woman—the series also features executive producers Lorentzen and Kellen Quinn from the original documentary. The hour-long series will make its global debut on Apple TV+ with two episodes on Wednesday, September 25, 2024, and will continue with new episodes every Wednesday through November 20, 2024.
Netflix has adapted the Oscar-nominated documentary The Mole Agent into an eight-episode comedy series titled A Man on the Inside (formerly known as A Classic Spy), created by The Good Place's Mike Schur. Starring Ted Danson, the series follows Charles, a retired man who reinvents his life by answering an ad placed by a private investigator and becomes a mole in a covert investigation of the Pacific View Retirement Residence in San Francisco.
The original film, nominated for a Best Documentary Oscar in 2021, is set in Chile and chronicles the story of an 83-year-old widower hired to infiltrate a nursing home to uncover potential mistreatment of its residents, including the mother of the private investigator’s client. Executive producers include the original film’s director Maite Alberdi and producer Marcela Santibáñez of Micromundo Producciones. A Man on the Inside will premiere on Netflix in November 2024.
