Gloria Calderón Kellett Secures Rights To Celia Cruz Estate As Hyphenate Media Group Acquires Stake in GloNation
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Gloria Calderón Kellett has joined the Hyphenate Media Group family as the Cris Abrego and Eva Longoria-founded company acquires a stake in her GloNation Studios production banner. As their first collaboration, GloNation secured the exclusive rights to develop TV and film projects for the Celia Cruz Estate, alongside Uncontained Media, a deal brokered by Hyphenate.
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Kellett joins with several original series set up with studios and distributors across the marketplace and a significant slate of original content.
With Hyphenate’s investment in GloNation, Kellett will have access to the infrastructure and resources of the holding as she develops, packages, and produces content for buyers across the industry. The multihyphenate Kellet is a showrunner, producer, director, playwright, and actress who is best known for co-creating the series One Day at a Time alongside Mike Royce and creating the Prime Video series With Love.
Along with Blumhouse Television and Spotify, Glonation produced The Horror of Dolores Roach, in 2023 based on the hit Gimlet podcast, reuniting her with ODAAT star Justina Machado. Most recently, she wrote One of the Good Ones, a family showdown comedy play for the Pasadena Playhouse.
Kellett is set to receive the inaugural Hyphenate Award at the Critics Choice Celebration of Latino Cinema & Television to be held on October 22. The award celebrates and recognizes the vital contributions of creators in our industry like Kellett.
“I am thrilled about this deal with Cris, Eva, and Hyphenate Media Group. Throughout my career, I’ve been in a number of overall deals with great companies, but they never quite met my ambition. I don’t just want Glonation to make content for one buyer, I want to create and produce content for all buyers both independently and with partners. The infrastructure offered by Hyphenate will help accelerate GloNation’s growth like never before,” Kellett said.
The partnership between Hyphenate and Glonation marks the first of an entrepreneur joining ranks with Abrego and Longoria since the duo launched their media venture with a strategic investment from Banijay Entertainment in October 2023.
“Gloria’s storytelling has a combination of heart, humor, and universality that is unmatched, so naturally, we have had a partnership with her in our sights since we first launched Hyphenate. Our intention is to help her scale GloNation as an independent content company that delivers premium content in every genre, in every format, and for all audiences. She has already been working closely with our team, who runs point for her business, while she focuses on servicing multiple active projects and developing her content slate,” shared Abrego, Co-Founder and CEO of Hyphenate Media Group.
“Gloria has been one of my dearest friends for more that 20 years, and I have always believed in and supported her voice and vision. Being in a position now to invest in her business and to provide the capital and infrastructure to supercharge her growth and impact is incredibly meaningful to me. She is a generational talent, and I am just thrilled to be on this journey with her as a partner,” Longoria, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Hyphenate Media Group, added.
Cruz, the legendary “Queen of Salsa,” was an Afro-Cuban singer whose professional career spanned over 5 decades with hit song after hit song entertaining the world over. Her years with Fania Records helped Cruz reach a wider audience working often alongside labelmates Tito Puente, Johnny Pacheco and Larry Harlow. In collaboration with record label founder Pacheco, one of her most famous hits, “Quimbara” was released in 1974.
Always a well sought out performer, her career peaked again in the last decade of her life with Cruz showing no signs of slowing down. She released over 80 albums, was a four-time Grammy Award winner, three-time Latin Grammy winner and was honored with the Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 2016, to name just a few of her accolades. She lost her battle to cancer in 2003 at the age of 77. Her music remains as popular as ever and will only continue to peak as fans like Kellett share her story with future generations.
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