Start planning your fiestas now: Hit documentary “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” will launch on Paramount+ this week.
The film tells the story of how “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker worked to save beloved Colorado-based Mexican restaurant Casa Bonita, which was immortalized in a classic episode of their animated show.
“¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” will have its streaming debut on Paramount+ Wednesday, October 2 in the United States. The film has had a very limited theatrical run, but it has performed exceptionally well for a documentary, bringing in just shy of $125,000. “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” has been one of the highest-grossing documentaries of the year.
IndieWire previously reported that after the film played on just a single screen in Denver, it had already achieved the highest per-screen average for any documentary film released theatrically in 2024.
Arthur Bradford directed “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!,” and the film shows how “South Park” creators Stone and Parker took on the ambitious effort to purchase and restore the Denver landmark Casa Bonita to its former glory.
When the restaurant opened in 1974 in a strip mall, the massive (and pink) Casa Bonita was quickly considered the “Disneyland of Mexican restaurants,” complete with an indoor waterfall, cliff divers, and haunted caves. “South Park” made the eatery the subject of a classic 2003 episode that IndieWire previously called the series’ best episode ever.
Yet the documentary “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” is more like an episode of “Kitchen Nightmares.” Stone and Parker soon realize just how enormous the restoration costs and repairs necessary to make Casa Bonita functioning again are; in fact, the price tag balloons to almost more than $20 million, which Stone and Parker are looking to finance out of their own pocket. The renovations have taken years, with the restaurant finally completed and re-opening.
“¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” first premiered at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival, where it won the Audience Prize for a documentary film. It next played at Telluride and opened theatrically in select markets.
“Sometimes it’s difficult to fathom this level of altruism coming from the voice of Eric Cartman,” IndieWire’s review of “Casa Bonita” reads. “But when Parker chokes up talking about the joy that he receives from watching children run around Casa Bonita while forging their own childhood memories, it’s hard not to believe him.”
The film is a production of Sweet Relief in association with MTV Documentary Films. It was produced by Jennifer Ollman. P.H. O’Brien is Director of Photography. Chad Beck (ACE), Devin Concannon and Paul Frost are editors, Bradford and Keith Pizzi are executive producers. Afshin Beyzaee and Vernon Chatman are co-executive producers.
