Call it Montezuma’s revenge. Or more precisely in this case, Tlaloc’s revenge.
Amid the hype for the second season of the The Summer I Turned Pretty or feature Red, White & Royal Blue, another Amazon title has quietly been reigning over the streaming service’s top 10.
The Black Demon, a shark movie with a supernatural and Latino bent, has claimed in the number one spot on Amazon’s streaming rankings for seven consecutive days since its debut Aug. 22, beating out not just those Amazon sensations, but also major studio fare such as Universal’s Cocaine Bear and Paramount’s Dungeons & Dragons, which also sit in the streamer’s daily top 10 ranking of most-watched entries in the U.S.
It’s an impressive feat, given that the film, made for under $10 million, had just a small marketing spend, though without actual viewing numbers, it’s hard to judge the breadth of the thriller’s success. Unlike Netflix, Amazon doesn’t even release the total minutes viewed of its top 10 movies. Still, the number one status of Demon does underscore the power of Latino stories, which when delivered in the right way, can reach a wide swath of a hungry audience.
“No one has ever seen a genre shark movie with a Latino bent,” says Javier Chapa, one of the producers of Demon and whose company, Mucho Mas Media, originated the project. “That’s where we saw the opportunity, given our company’s ethos is all about really supporting people of color on both sides of the camera — but also filling a highly underserved need in our community.”
The movie mixes several subgenres in its tale of a family stuck on an oil rig as they try to survive the onslaught of a giant shark, a megalodon, which just might be the herald of the Aztec god Tlaloc. Yes, there are shark attacks, but there is also an emotional family drama, a faith-based spirit, Aztec culture and plenty of Latino sabor.
Chapa, who is the husband of Legendary…
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