Narcos is an American crime web television series created and produced by Chris Brancato, Carlo Bernard, and Doug Miro. Let’s see some amazing facts and trivia about it!
1.The series was announced in April 2014, through a partnership deal struck between Netflix and Spanish language network Telemundo.
2. The series is primarily written by Chris Brancato and directed by Brazilian filmmaker José Padilha.
3. Jose Padilha directed the critically and commercially successful Elite Squad (2007), before directing its sequel in 2010, which became the highest grossing film ever in Brazil.
4. Narcos’ opening theme, “Tuyo”, is a narcocorrido written and composed for the film by Brazilian singer-songwriter Rodrigo Amarante.
5. The theme scores the visual montage comprising the title sequence, created by DK Studios under artistic director Tom O’Neill.
6. The 1980s-themed images address Colombian drug trafficking in general, the United States’ attempt to control it, the era’s glamour, footage from the mountainous regions of Bogota and surrounding underprivileged neighbourhoods, shots of local residents, archival news coverage, and violence.
7. In Spanish, the term “narco” is an abbreviation of the word “narcotraficante” (drug trafficker)
8. Before this usage, in the United States, the epithet “narc” (or “narco”) referred to a specialist officer of a narcotics police force, such as a DEA agent
9. The first season of Narcos chronicles the life of Pablo Escobar from the late 1970s, when he first began manufacturing cocaine, to July 1992, when he escaped La Catedral prison.
10. The show chronicles the main events that happened in Colombia during this period and Escobar’s relationship to them. It is told through the perspective of Steve Murphy, an American DEA agent working in Colombia.
11. Season 2 is a continuation of where Season 1 ended. Some soldiers find Escobar and his entourage right outside the perimeter of La Catedral, but are too petrified by Escobar to make a arrest.
12. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes rates the first season 78%, based on 45 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10.
13. Rotten Tomatoes rated the second season 100%, based on 17 reviews, with an average rating of 8.1/10.
14. Its consensus reads, “Narcos’ sophomore season manages to elevate the stakes to a gut-wrenching degree in what continues to be a magnificent account of Pablo Escobar’s life.”
15. On Metacritic, Season 2 holds a score of 76 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating “generally favorable reviews”.
16.Wagner Moura is Brazilian and had to learn Spanish to take on the role. His mother tongue is Portuguese.
18. When Pablo Escobar first met Fernando Duque in his house, he said “I’m not rich, I’m a poor man with money” this is a famous quote of Colombian Nobel prize writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
19. Aldemar Correa who plays the character of Ivan Torres, head of the militia group M-19 also acts as Fabio Ochoa in Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal (2012), another production about Pablo Escobar’s life.
20. The ‘Uzi’ seen being fired by various narcos during the series is actually an Ekol ASI a blank firing Uzi ‘clone’ used in place of the real Uzi in many films.
21. Adriana Barraza was previously tapped to portray Hermilda Escobar, Pablo’s mother, in four episodes – including the pilot. She was later replaced by Paulina García for unknown reasons.
22. Lula Carvalho, the director of photography, has previously worked with José Padilha in “Elite Squad 1 & 2” and “Robocop”.
23. In episode one, the Miami skyline is present day, not 1979.
24. Carrillo is based on Hugo Martinez who used to wink on declaring any criminal killed in an encounter.
25. Colonel Hugo Martinez who was shown in ther series in the form of an imaginary character of Carrillo had to face attempts on his life many times . Once when his cook was asked to poison him and second when a soldier who asked to shoot him. He was offered money by Pablo but he declined at the very instant.
26. Actor David Brody has a cameo in season 2 Episode S2E5 where he passes the phone too someone. Timecode: 00:36:04
27. In Episode 7, after Pablo and Primo Gustavo meet with their lawyer (22:50), Pablo explains his reasoning behind committing terrorist acts against the general public with the exact words used by Pablo Escobar himself in a phone-tapped conversation. The recording has been featured in several documentaries about his life.
28. Roberto, Pablo Escobar’s brother has written a book, Escobar – Drugs. Guns. Money. Power that, amongst other things, describes how he discovered a cure for AIDS while spending a lot of time working closely with horses.
29. Pedro Pascal who plays Javier Peña in Narcos, stated that the story of Escobar is like a Shakespearean drama or a greek tragedy with a king who falls from a great height very quickly.
30. Moura told The Daily Beast that after living in a country that produces and exports drugs, it’s clear to see that the war has been a “big flop.” Believing that more people are being killed by the “war” than from actual overdoses, he believes that addiction should be treated as primarily a health problem, not as a police problem, going on to say: “I always thought drugs should be legalized and now, just by doing [Narcos], it reinforced that….Killing and sending drug dealers to prison is not solely the problem, this is not the point. After you incarcerate the drug lord, of course it represents a defeat to the drug cartels, but it’s not gonna end them.”
31. Rodriguez Gacha (played by Luis Guzman) is shown to enter a party and murder everyone inside. This did happen, when Gacaha decided to eliminate his old associate Gilberto Molina in his mansion during a party, killing 18 people.
32. In reality, Javier Peña didn’t arrive to Colombia until 1988 and Steve Murphy until 1991, so all instances depicted before that are fictional.
33. Wagner Moura plays the role of Pablo Escobar, a Colombian drug-lord. In one of his best known roles in Elite Squad, he plays a BOPE (Brazilian Special Police) Captain trying to take down drug dealers and criminals in Rio de Janeiro.
34. Born Juan Pablo Escobar, Sebastian has been very open about his opinion of the show, claiming that the series insults Colombia and the victims of drug trafficking.
35. He also believes that the narrative of the series bends to the United States’ political interests, ignoring how the American Drug Enforcement Agency actually made things easier for his father to send cocaine to the US via Miami International Airport once they’d charged Pablo special “taxes.” Speaking to The New Daily, Marroquin reflected on his father’s legacy: “Drug trafficking destroyed my family; it gave us the world and then it took it away.”
36. Several times throughout the second season several sicarios are seen armed with the Para Ordnance Model 85. Which is, in fact, an automatic paintball (labelled a ‘dye marker’) manufactured in the 1980s and was intended as a training tool for military and law enforcement agencies.
37. Having put on 40 pounds to portray the character Pablo Escobar, Wagner Moura lost the weight through a vegan diet.
38. Maurice Compte who portrayed Colonel Carrillo, the leader of the Search Bloc going after Pablo Escobar in Narcos played a hit man for a Mexican cartel in Breaking Bad.
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