Coliseo

Coliseo (in english: Colosseum) is a Mexican telenovela produced by Canal Extra and aired on the same channel between October 18, 2010 and August 26, 2011, obtaining 225 episodes. The work was created by Edgar de la Rua.

Plot
In the Roman Empire in the year AD 114, the young legionary Linus finds himself in the middle of a dispute between two aristocrats (Marcelino and Salomón) who seek the Emperor's support to become members of the senate. The two aristocrats end up offering Linus a bribe, each with a promise more exorbitant than the other, but Linus takes advantage of both and ends up asking for a lot of riches, using that occasion as an opportunity to leave the life of a mere legionary. Getting rich, Linus also seems to lose his ethics and uses and abuses his new position, and tries at all costs to have a relationship with Valeria, Salomón's daughter, including inducing the old oligarch to arrange a marriage between him and his daughter. Linus, however, forgot that there was already a love engagement in his hometown, where he left a bride, Flora, who leaves for Rome in search of him, and is shocked to discover what her suitor has become. A loving trio forms between Linus, Flora and Valeria, but when Cneo, Valeria's brother enters the plot after returning from his studies and discovering the deception that the former legionnaire has been up to with Valeria and Salomón without both of them knowing, Linus finds himself pressured to take action, and things are made worse when suddenly Valeria is murdered, and Linus goes on a warpath with Rome's other riches.

Conception
Edgar de la Rua was commissioned by Canal Extra to write the script for Coliseo in mid-2010, as Dulce Amor was coming to an end, Edgar de la Rua pulled out of his sleeve a project that was quite questionable by some of the executives, a plot that took place in ancient Rome, more precisely in the Roman Empire. Edgar didn't mind some negative comments about the upcoming soap opera, and asked why viewers would accept a teen drama about common teenage problems and not accept a soap opera set in the Roman Empire. "Although it seems to be something old, Coliseo is more current than ever, Ancient Rome is more current than ever! Analyze, ancient Rome had adulteries, vices, murders, drugs, abuse of power, robberies, inequality, poverty, hunger, many blackmailers, charlatans, greedy people, what has changed? we, the mirror of Ancient Rome, continue to have these same problems today."

Edgar de la Rua, 2010

The telenovela was approved under some resistance by executives and began production at the end of August 2010.