“House of Money”
Five exciting facts about the Netflix hit
“House of Money”: Palermo, Denver and Rio (from left) during the attack.
© © TAMARA ARRANZ / NETFLIX / 2020 Netflix, Inc.
“House of Money” fans will get to see the final episodes from December 3rd. Before the end, here are five more exciting facts.
On December 3rd the final showdown will be held at “Haus des Geldes”. Will the professor (Álvaro Morte, 46) manage to get his bank robbers out of the Bank of Spain without further losses and with gold? Before the last episodes flicker across the TV screens, here are five more exciting facts about the successful Netflix hit.
A flop becomes a hit
Believe it or not, before “House of Money” was available on Netflix, the series turned out to be a flop. The first season ran first on the Spanish channel Antena 3, where initially acceptable ratings could be achieved. However, from the second season onwards, the interest of the audience decreased enormously, so that Antena 3 canceled the series. Then Netflix came into play. The streaming service added the first two seasons to its range – and made the series an international hit. The storyline about the professor and his gang is now considered the most popular Spanish-language series with a viewing time of more than 600 million hours.
These masks were available
Something that makes the series so unique, along with its characters and plot, are the iconic looks of the bank robbers: the red jumpsuit and mask by Spanish artist Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) became popular costumes for Carnival, Mardi Gras and Halloween around the world. Besides Dalí, there were other faces to choose from. “An image of Don Quixote was also seriously considered. As the embodiment of topics such as madness, genius and romance,” revealed screenwriter Javier Gómez Santander (38) in an interview with the spanish newspaper “Elmundo”. In the end they would have chosen Dalí “because he was iconographically very strong”.
Series song “Bella Ciao” was not chosen arbitrarily
“House of Money” made the partisan song “Bella Ciao” an international hit. The song sung by the characters while digging their escape from the banknote printing plant was chosen carefully by scriptwriter Santander, as he explained to “Elmundo”. Production was temporarily stuck in a dead end. “It was very frustrating and the next morning I woke up sad. When I’m in a bad mood I often hear ‘Bella Ciao’ to cheer me up. I did (…) and I realized that it was the song.”
A famous footballer in season three
In the third season, a prominent guest appeared in front of the “House of Money” camera: none other than football star Neymar (29) slipped into the role of a monk for one episode. On twitter he raved about his guest role: “I was able to realize my dream and be part of my favorite series.”
Will Tokyo remain the narrator?
When it came to the narrator, there was apparently no complete agreement in production circles at first. Originally the professor was planned for this part. However, producers feared that the first-person narration of his own plan might seem too narcissistic. Then Moscow (Augustín Ramos) was up for debate to give the plot a more emotional touch. Ultimately, the decision was made to go to Tokyo (Úrsula Corberó, 32) because the female perspective made the predominantly cold and male environment softer, it said.
Caution! The following lines contain massive spoilers from the first episodes of season five.
It is unclear, however, whether the last episodes of the fifth and final season are told from that perspective. Because: Tokyo was tragically killed in the last episode during a gun battle with the police.