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Today arrives at bookstores The new installment of the ‘Captain Alatriste’ series by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. Although 14 years have passed since their last novel, its success is indisputable and palpates not only in the derivatives that the character has lived (most during this parenthesis in the time of the original book series), but also in the impact that the series has had outside the entertainment industry. So much, that perhaps we can consider ‘Alatriste’ as the main franchise that Spanish culture has given in recent years. Success franchise. Of course, Alatriste is not the only fictional character who has lived an existence of success beyond his original incarnation. It is inevitable to think about Mortadelo and Filemónhis successful adaptations to cinema and animation and his remembered video games for PC. And there is also the significant case of a torrent, for two reasons: first, its politicized resignification, sometimes against the desire of the original author; And second, its Current recoverywhen nostalgia seems to be the only safe commercial maneuver. Torrente had comic and video game (and slot machine), but of merely anecdotal reach. What attracts Alatriste’s attention is that, although the novels have been a very considerable editorial success, its successive adaptations and reincarnations have also had the support of the public and the sympathies of Pérez Reverte. The original books. The original book saga tells the adventures of Diego Alatriste and Tenorio, a veteran soldier of the Thirds of Flanders who is spoiled in the Madrid of the seventeenth century as a swordsman for salary and in full decline of the Spanish empire. To the original series, composed of seven books published between 1996 and 2011, two more are added. Much of its success is due, apart from the sometimes folletinesco tone and carefree adventure of swordsman, to the appearance of famous characters of the Golden Age and their careful historical atmosphere. In audiovisual. The movie ‘Alatriste‘, by Agustín García-Yanes is not a precisely secondary product: due to the participation of an international star, Viggo Mortensen (at that time very in vogue thanks to the movies of’The Lord of the Rings‘), his budget catapulted until he became the most expensive film until the moment of Spanish cinema. With a completely exportable invoice, he did not get an excessive box office success. That did not prevent in 2015, Telecinco to premiere a series by adapting the novels. Salvador Calvo and Enrique Urbizu directed it and gave life to the protagonist Aitor Luna. The series fulfilled in audiences, but it was strongly criticized by his overwhelmingly television aesthetics. Other media. But Alatriste’s career does not end there: although we have not come to see an Alatriste video game, we have tasted a role -playing game (‘Captain Alatriste role’, by the legendary Ricard Ibáñez – at which we all remember for the mythical ‘Aquelarre’- and that he even enjoyed two expansions). There have also been two comics. ‘Captain Alatriste’ (2005) and ‘Blood cleaning’ (2008), both with a script of no less than Carlos Giménez and based on the first two books of the series. Beyond adaptations. However, the most interesting of the success of ‘Alatriste’, and what enshrines the series as an unquestionable triumphal franchise of our pop culture is the impact it has had beyond adaptations. For example, the saga renewed interest in the Golden Age, something that was noted not only in exhibitions, book releases and others, but even in educational terms: books were used as educational material in schoolswith even reissue with reading guides. Hand in hand, Alatriste led us to rethink the “Spanish character”with its lights and shadows, something that Pérez-Reverte has not stopped reflecting so far and that permeated at the time in innumerable essays and articles. Alatriste still stands, and not only for commercial interests: its presence as a Spanish cultural icon is indisputable. Header | Telecinco Cinema In Xataka | Before he died, this man left a list of everything he had read in his life: 3,599 books of all kinds that you can now consult