SÃO PAULO, SP (FOLHAPRESS) – After remaking several iconic soap operas, such as “Vale Tudo” and “Pantanal,” Globo is now seeking to ride the popularity of another success, “Êta Mundo Bom!”, but not through a remake. Debuting this Monday is “Êta Mundo Melhor!” (“What a Better World!”), a sequel to that series, starring the country boy Candinho at the center of the story.
It’s a safe bet. The original soap opera, released in 2016, has the highest average audience rating in Globo’s six o’clock time slot of the past decade, according to Kantar Ibope. Written by Walcyr Carrasco, “Êta Mundo Bom!” was praised for the lightheartedness of its plot and the humor of its protagonists—simple, rural, dreamy characters.
In “Êta Mundo Melhor!”, Carrasco shares the scriptwriting with Mauro Wilson, who previously wrote the comedies “Os Trapalhões” and “A Grande Família.” In the story, Candinho, who spent years searching for his mother, now searches for his own son, kidnapped and taken to Zulma’s orphanage, a new villain character played by Heloísa Périsse.
Familiar characters from “Êta Mundo Bom!” are back, such as Cunegundes, played by Elizabeth Savalla, and Dita, portrayed by Jennifer Nascimento, now a protagonist. However, the cast also includes new additions like Tony Tornado and Larissa Manoela, as well as departures of actors such as Marco Nanini and Camila Queiroz, who previously gained popularity with her comedic character Mafalda.
Wilson says that the potential of the new serial lies in the combination of 1950s São Paulo and contemporary themes. The serial will show, for example, characters fighting against machismo, even though this was rare at the time.
Behind the scenes, “Êta Mundo Melhor!” also became more modern—it will use artificial intelligence tools, being the first Globo soap opera to widely invest in this technology. The goal is to animate static images of São Paulo’s capital city from that era and incorporate emotions into animals.
It’s the case of Policarpo, the donkey who is Candinho’s companion and one of the most popular characters in the original story, who reemerges with anthropomorphic faces and expressions created using artificial intelligence. A glimpse of this appears in one of the commercials released by the network, where the animal appears with bared teeth, lips raised, in a mischievous—but somewhat unrealistic—expression.
Covering the animal’s face with a humanized expression is a process that begins during filming, says Fernando Alonso, post-production and design director at Globo. According to him, for the editing to be successful, the scene needs to be lit in a specific way, and the actor portraying the animal must follow a carefully planned movement in front of the cameras.
Artificial intelligence will also be used in other areas of production, such as sound, colors, and visual effects—processes that are now accelerated with technology. Colorization, which used to take hours, is now done in minutes, says Alonso.
Ator Ary Fontoura, 92 years old, who returns to play the farm owner Quinzinho in his 51st telenovela, says he believes the innovation will be well received. “You can’t keep looking back and resisting what’s coming. I’m not afraid of artificial intelligence. Nothing that emerges will destroy humanity. We will always remain intact,” he says.
“Everything is a matter of standards. If AI is used arbitrarily, it can take jobs. But things will adjust,” he adds. Alonso, the director in charge of technology, rejects the idea that employees of the broadcaster will lose ground because of artificial intelligence. It is the human who commands the machine, he says.
Walcyr Carrasco had already shown himself open to the novelty. At the soap opera’s launch event two weeks ago, the author stated he uses AI to conduct research during the process of imagining the soap opera. Now, via email, he says he has never resorted to the technology to write the scripts because the tools are trained to imagine endings that he considers overly moralistic. “AI would have been excellent, for example, for Aesop to create his fables.”
The authors say that the new miniseries is not only for those who watched “Êta Mundo Bom!”. It’s unusual for Globo to create continuations of its regular soap operas shown on free-to-air TV — something similar did happen with “No Rancho Fundo” and “Mar do Sertão,” but the soap operas only shared some characters and had very different plots.
For Sergio Guizé, who returns to the role of Candinho almost ten years later, the change that should catch the audience’s attention is the injection of more humor and musical scenes. “It’s a soap opera quite different from the previous one. It has a more popular slant and leans towards Charlie Chaplin’s humor, as well as that of clowns. These are characters who transform the tragic into the comic.”
What a Better World!
When: Premiere on Monday (30th) at 6:05 PM
Rating: 10 years
Authorship: Walcyr Carrasco and Mauro Wilson
Cast: Jennifer Nascimento, Sergio Guizé, and Heloisa Périssé
Production: Brazil, 2025
Direction: Amora Mautner
Where: Watch on TV Globo and Globoplay