Netflix turns a Spanish conspiracy theorist into a movie character

Netflix portrays the conspiracy theorist: a bomb, adrenochrome and José Coronado

What happens when a platform with hundreds of millions of subscribers turns your paranoia into the star of its catalog? Reality outdoes fiction. Netflix's new film about a Spanish conspiracy theorist now has a name and a face: José Coronado plays a retired, widowed Civil Guard officer who, convinced that a pharmaceutical company kidnaps children to extract adrenochrome from them, decides to plant a bomb on its premises. The film is not a documentary, but it does not come out of thin air either.

From a pharmacy in Pamplona to the big screen

The script smells of the Spain of health hoaxes. Among the inspirations attributed to the character is a former pharmacy employee in Pamplona who became famous for spreading theories about vaccines and ended up charged with fraud, losing several court cases. Other promoters of vaccine denial are also mentioned, although none of these connections has been confirmed by the film's team.

The curious thing is that the caricature is not far off the mark for those who have trinc the phenomenon: the mix of numerology, hidden elites and evil pharmaceutical companies is the identikit picture of a sector that does not need screenwriters.

The report that debunks the headline

One of the elements that has generated the most talk is the Bar España case. El Español once published a report by the Instituto Nacional de Toxicología (Spain's national forensic institute) according to which the bones found were "probably human", while the outlet's headline claimed the opposite. That contradiction has become a flag for those who claim there is an orchestrated disinformation campaign. Skeptics, on the other hand, see it as a simple journalistic mistake that paranoia turns into proof of a plot.

Vaccines, elbichito passports and the business of doubt

The film arrives in the middle of the elbichito hangover, with vaccine denial still lingering. In the circles where these theories circulate, it is repeated that vaccines increased mortality and that fake elbichito passports dismantled the official narrative. There is no scientific consensus supporting those claims, but the film turns them into fiction material just as the pharmaceutical industry prepares new drugs.

In the end, the biggest irony is this: conspiracy theorists have spent years saying that everything is a script written by the elites. Now Netflix has returned the favor, and chances are they will not even collect royalties.