Bruno Luperi was much criticized for not making major changes to Pantanal (2022) and decided to dare to make some changes to the plot of Renascer (1993) for the remake that Globo will show from January. The author replaced the priest with a pastor to try to attract aloof evangelicals to the station. He decided to follow the management’s recommendation and include representatives of religion in the house’s soap operas.
At a recent meeting with authors, Globo director Amauri Soares urged them to pay more attention to evangelicals. According to the speech of the Almighty, there is a huge change in the profile of Brazilians. Although Brazil is still the largest Catholic country in the world, it is becoming increasingly multireligious.
After introducing Vai na Fé (2023) and its core of evangelicals as protagonists, Globo is taking new steps to win over an audience that has turned its nose at the channel since the election of Jair Bolsonaro.
Soares explained that Catholicism would soon no longer be the dominant religion among the population and that in ten years evangelicals would be the majority here. And the allpowerful Globo doesn’t want to further alienate them from the broadcaster, which became very intense under the previous government.
The director also appreciated the purchasing power of this audience, which began to reject the channel and its products. The performance of Vai na Fé was a nod to a section of the evangelicals and an enormous success for Globo.
There was no formal request from the management for Luperi to exchange the priest for the Protestant pastor, but it is a fact that the author followed the advice of the management. The novelist decided that two priests were not necessary in the story and changed the religion of one of the characters. In the remake there will only be one Catholic representative, Padro Santo, played by Chico Diaz.
Padre Lívio, played by actor Jackson Costa in 1993, is one of the most famous characters from the original story. The role now falls to newcomer Breno da Matta. The Bahian actor was hired to play the character by director Gustavo Fernandez, who worked with him on Justiça 2, which is scheduled to premiere next year on Globoplay.
As in the original version, Lívio will become involved with Joaninha (Alice Carvalho), the wife of Tião Galinha (Irandhir Santos). In the soap opera from three decades ago, Tereza Seiblitz and Osmar Prado played the characters.