La Leyenda del Chupacabras

Plot

Leo San Juan was imprisoned after being mistaken for a rebel insurgency by the royal army while on his way home to Puebla. But when a mysterious flying monster, known as the chupacabra, is on the rise, attacking prisoners and guards, he must defend his fate and fight the flying monster.

Cast

Release

The film has been first teased on Ánima Estudios' social media on 4 March 2016, naming it the "next installment", tentatively titled "La Leyenda de".

The film was announced for release in Mexico on 21 October 2016. The film's teaser trailer has premiered on 26 May 2016. The film's official trailer has been released on 9 September 2016.

The film has been presented at the 2016 Pixelatl Festival in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

A Bugsted short was accompanied with the Mexican release of the film.

U.S. Release

The film received a limited theatrical release in the United States, which was released on October 14, 2016, one week prior to it's Mexican release, distributed by Pantelion Films and Lionsgate. It was shown in the original Spanish language format with English subtitles.

The film was later released on DVD and Digital HD formats with an English language version on March 7, 2017.

According to producer Jose C. Garcia de Letona, he stated that Chupacabras is the biggest release in the Leyendas franchise as it is the first, not only in the franchise, but also the first film from production company Ánima Estudios to receive a theatrical release in the "major" U.S. market, as well the challenges for the release. "It is a first effort that we are very happy about. The market there is brutal. [I]t is 10 times bigger than ours and today we have 40 million Spanish speakers." Co-producer Fernando de Fuentes also stated that he was satisfied with the reception of the news. "This is the first time we debut a film in the U.S. and we're excited with how well the Latino community has received the news of the film," he said.

Director Alberto Rodriguez, who previously directed Llorona and Momias, said that the success of the past installments were "unexpected" and "sensational", and said that, "[It] made us think that maybe we could repeat that success in the United States." He said that the film's story included the "chupacabras" since the legendary creature has been widely recognized among the Hispanic culture in the United States.

Box office

To date, there is currently no U.S. box-office data released for the film.

In Mexico, the film debuted at #2 on its opening weekend, grossing $40,909,034 pesos (approx. USD $2.2 million), with an audience of 1 million.

Rececption

The film has received negative reviews from critics upon its release, with criticism focused on the film's writing, bland humor, and story. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 17%, based on 5 reviews, with an average rating of 4.6/10.

Animation

Unlike its previous installments, which were all animated in the flash animation format, this film is animated in style of traditional animation. The animation is done by Ánima Estudios in Mexico while additional animation were provided by Toon City in the Philippines, Mighty in Mexico, and TeamApp.

Director Alberto Rodriguez stated that the animation process was one of the challenges in the film. "We started with the task of generating a more traditional type of animation that needs more energy, people, and knowledge," said Rodriguez. Producer Fernando de Fuentes said that the America public "is not used to watching 2D [animated] productions."