Buena Vista Picks Up Banderas Drama Mare Nostrum for Latin America

Buena Vista International, the international distribution arm of Disney, has acquired Mare Nostrum for theatrical and all-media distribution in Latin America, according to Variety. Theatrical means cinema release. All-media covers television, streaming and home video, so the rights reach well beyond the opening weekend.

The film stars Antonio Banderas as the Captain. Its story follows a container ship carrying a billion-euro cargo from Istanbul to Cape Town, and the captain rescues refugees along the way.

Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat are directing. Jose Luis Escolar is producing, Xavi Giménez is the cinematographer and Alain Bainée is the production designer. Variety's report describes pre-production, the planning stage before filming, as already underway.

HanWay Films is handling sales of the film at the American Film Market, the trade event where distributors and sales agents buy and sell the rights to films. Latin American rights have now gone to Buena Vista, one of the first deals to be reported from the market for this title.

Filming is scheduled to begin in March 2027 in Bilbao, Spain. Principal photography, the main shoot when most scenes are recorded, is the stage that turns the planning into a film. Audiences in Latin America will have to wait for a release date, which has not been announced.

Stories like this one often begin years before a camera rolls. A distributor commits to a region early, a sales agent takes the film to buyers at a market, and the production team works toward a shoot date that has to fit around cast, crew and location. Here, all three of those threads are in place for a film that has yet to start shooting.