By Luis Reyes

Dora and The Lost City Of Gold Opens to $17M Nationwide!

Dora the Explorer as a mature teenager as played by Isabela Moner in the live-action Dora and The Lost City of Gold opened to a respectable but underperforming  $17 million box-office weekend (Aug 9-12). The good news is that the targeted U.S. Hispanic audience came out in droves for the reportedly $49M film before marketing costs. According to THR, 40% of the ticket buyers were Hispanic, 37% Caucasian and 12.3% Asian/other and 11% were African-American. I wonder where they get those figures from since I went to the theater and my ticket did not say Black or Hispanic (we will save that for another article). Half of the audience-skewed female mostly made up of parents and kids. 

 Dora, an animated character created almost twenty years ago with its worldwide brand should have brought in numbers closer to the $40M or $60M range in comparison to opening weekends for such family fare as Aladdin or The Lion King. Guillermo Del Toro’s produced Scary Stories pulled in $21M over the weekend with a lot less promotion.

 Dora tries to have it both ways trying to be an Indiana Jones and Jumanji like entertainment. The filmmakers succeeded more on the Jumanji side, over the other but completely missed the charm of the iconic Dora the Explorer character with its core worldwide audiences. Dora is perpetually a six-year-old little girl, not a teenager. 

The film is enjoyable and family-friendly and the only miscalculation, in my opinion, is that the filmmakers should have kept Dora a little six-year-old girl, not a teenager. I believe that many in the young Kiddies audiences had difficulty identifying with or accepting this almost grown-up Dora in the form of Isabela Moner.  

I do not know what led the filmmakers to chose to make Dora a teenager rather than casting a little girl that is closer to the animated character. I suspect that aging Dora up was an attempt to appeal to a broader audience while at the same time not losing the Nickelodeon cartoon’s fan base by essentially keeping her in character.  Even Eugenio Derbez who co-stars in the film as mysterious explorer Alejandro Gutierrez, in a televised interview recalled bringing his little daughter to the set during filming. She was excited about meeting Dora and being disappointed upon meeting the mature 18-year-old Moner when she was expecting to see either a cartoon character or a real live Dora in the form of a little girl.

Eva Longoria, who stars as Dora’s mother Elena, is quoted in an AP story from the films’ Los Angeles premiere, “Such a positive portrayal of a young Latina who is smart and kind and brave and fearless and speaks Spanish, is a reason to celebrate.” 

A large Latino cast in leading roles is at the forefront of a major Hollywood production, that is a rarity in today’s diverse entertainment cultural climate.

Michael Peña, who stars as Dora’s father in the film, told Variety, “ It’s a reason to do this kind of movie. Number one, it’s going to be a fun movie and people are going to like it, but number two, 24 years ago when I started acting, this would have never happened. There was no big-budget movie that I know of that any Latin person was even starring in. It’s cool that this is just kind of normal now in a way but for me, it’s especially satisfying.”

Along with Moner, Longoria, Pena, and Derbez, Dora also stars Danny Trejo as Boots, Jeff Wahlberg as Dora’s famous cousin Diego, and the voice performance of Benicio del Toro as Swiper.  Eugenio Derbez also serves as Executive Producer. 

Dora can still rake in a steady stream of box-office ticket sales as the film’s favorable buzz and social media presence builds with audiences over the final weeks of the remaining summer blockbuster playing time.

Netflix’s Gabriel Iglesias Comedy Mr. Iglesias Renewed for a Second Season

Mr. Iglesias has been renewed for a second season.  Comedian Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias stars as a good-natured high school history teacher who tries to help the gifted misfit students at his high school Alma Mater.  The comedy show features a diverse and inclusive cast including Jacob Vargas, Sherri Shepard, Maggie Geha, Cree Cicchino, Fabrizio Zacharee Guido, Oscar Nunez, and Richard Grant.

Mr. Iglesias has been a critical hit and received a positive response from Netflix subscribers. The school featured in the series, Wilson High, is based on a real high school of the same name in Long Beach, California that Iglesias attended and graduated from in 1994.  Iglesias is currently on a nationwide comedy concert tour and has signed on to voice a leading character in the animated feature Blazing Samurai. Mr. Iglesias, created by Kevin Hench, is also co-executive produced by Luisa Leschin.