By The Miami Herald

MIAMI – Wisteria Lane is getting a Latin makeover as Calle Manzanares.

Latin America will be getting its own version of the ABC hit drama “Desperate Housewives” this summer – actually make that four versions.

In an unusual move, Buena Vista International Television Latin America will shoot editions of “Desperate Housewives” for four different markets: Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador and Colombia, complete with their own casts and tweaked scripts to reflect local language and cultural flavor.

“Each will be highly customized,” said Fernando Barbosa, senior vice president of Miami-based Buena Vista, a subsidiary of Walt Disney Co. “But we’re never going to lose touch with the main script.”

Disney’s move underscores how North and South American television industries have started to cross-pollinate.

Fox is planning to air two, 13-week Americanized telenovelas (Spanish-language soap operas) in prime time later this year. Other U.S. networks are also looking at using the novela format.

In Latin America, viewers have long seen American programs, but rarely remakes. Shows, including “Desperate Housewives,” are mostly dubbed or subtitled.

“Desperate Housewives,” which is exported to some 200 territories around the globe, also airs in Spanish in the United States on ABC’s secondary audio programming channel.

Buena Vista thinks “Desperate Housewives” is the type of show, a drama that reveals the dark side of suburban women, that will resonate deeper with Latin American viewers – and advertisers – if it’s remade with local telenovela stars and Latin nuances.

“In Latin America, the main genre of television is the telenovela,” Barbosa said. “This will fit well with what audiences are used to.”

Local remakes of foreign shows are not uncommon. American producers, for instance, often look across the Atlantic for concepts. Hit shows such as “Three’s Company,” “All in the Family” and “American Idol” were all done first in Britain.

But shows tailored for relatively small countries in a region like Latin America, which commonly share programming, is a rare strategy, largely because of high production costs.

“It’s a cool project. “Desperate Housewives’ really is a novela,” said Luis Estrada, a Spanish-language programming consultant. “I wonder if it’s financially feasible.”

Buena Vista thinks it is. Starting in April, 23 episodes of “Amas de Casa Desesperadas/Donas de Casa Desesperadas” will be produced by Pol-Ka Producciones in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where a Latin version of the Wisteria Lane set, the “Desperate Housewives” neighborhood, is being built as Calle Manzanares.

Some key changes for Latin America: the plumber will have a professional occupation, such as engineer, because a plumber in Latin America wouldn’t live in the same neighborhood as his clients.

The Hispanic couple in the U.S. version will be a foreign couple from another Latin American country.

Characters’ names will be Hispanicized: Gabrielle will become Gabriela; Susan, Susana; Bree, Elisa; and Lynette, Lia.

Barbosa said discussions are under way with networks for versions in Mexico and Chile.

It’s not the first time that U.S. shows have been remade in Spanish. In the late “90s, Telemundo remade several shows such as “Starsky & Hutch” and “Charlie’s Angels” for the U.S. Hispanic market, but they bombed with viewers. “They didn’t work,” Estrada recalled. “People were already familiar with the English version.”

Buena Vista is counting on the uniqueness of the “Desperate Housewives” story to kindle interest from viewers. If the concept works, more shows will get their own Latin American versions, Barbosa said.

“This marks only the beginning of the whole project,” he said. “We’ll be taking other shows, too.”