General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

BuyBust: The Undesirables

BuyBust: The Undesirables is a Filipino action-thriller television series directed by Erik Matti and scheduled for release on Netflix in 2026. It is a sequel and spin-off of Matti's 2018 action film BuyBust, continuing the story of Nina Manigan, again played by Anne Curtis, now a former police officer in a dystopian Philippines, and co-starring Gerald Anderson.¹

Key fact	Detail
Format	Nine-episode story-based miniseries, a sequel and spin-off of the 2018 film BuyBust¹^•²
Premise	In a lawless dystopian city, a vengeful ex-cop and a corporate outcast unite to confront a ruthless drug lord after a senator's daughter is murdered³
Lead cast	Anne Curtis as Nina Manigan; Gerald Anderson as Sig Torillo³^•⁴
Creative team	Directed by Erik Matti; written by Michiko Yamamoto, Mary Rose Colindres, Leovic Arceta, and Jim Flores; producer Millette Soto; executive producer Dondon Monteverde³
Production	Reality MM Studios and Studio Viva, in Filipino, for Netflix⁵
Filming	Principal photography from April 15, 2024 to July 4, 2026; 80 shooting days across three production units in Maragondon (Cavite), Malate, and Intramuros (Manila)⁶
Release	Announced for 2026 on Netflix; no exact release date had been set as of the February 2026 slate announcement⁷

Spoilers

Premise and characters

In the 2018 film, rookie anti-narcotics agent Nina Manigan survives a botched drug raid that traps her team inside a hostile Manila slum. In the series, Nina, now a former police officer, enters a lawless zone outside the capital. Netflix's synopsis describes a vengeful ex-cop and a corporate outcast who unite to confront a ruthless drug lord after a senator's daughter is murdered.¹^•³

Anne Curtis reprises her role as Nina Manigan, starting off just as damaged as she was at the end of the film, still surrounded by the corruption that almost took her life. Gerald Anderson plays the outcast Sig Torillo. The cast also includes Nour Hooshmand, Lotlot de Leon, Sarah Lahbati, Eric Quizon, Sol Eugenio, Monika Koudroglou Truong, and Pauline Lopez; Indonesian filmmaker Joko Anwar also appears in the series.⁴^•⁵^•⁹^•¹⁰

Origin of the project

When BuyBust was released in 2018, Matti had no plans to continue the story. He described the film as a one-off that made money, and he left it at that. After the pandemic pushed audiences toward streaming, Netflix approached him about expanding the film into a series, which became his first collaboration with the platform.¹^•⁸

Working with his creative team, including his wife, screenwriter Michiko Yamamoto, and producer Dondon Monteverde, Matti decided the continuation needed only Nina Manigan. The series is not a direct continuation of the film's plot; the only thread carried over is Nina's search for the drug lord known as Judas. That decision opened the story to subjects beyond drugs, including class struggle, the rich versus the poor, and the powerful versus the powerless, across nine episodes.¹

The dystopian setting also allowed world-building that a feature film could not hold: a divided capital, a prison island with characters around it, and a world the creators felt could be explored repeatedly. Matti said nine episodes was not even enough, and other planned material had to be cut to keep the series lean.¹

Action and training

The series preserves the original film's approach to action. Matti described BuyBust as an experiential, visceral film with a deliberately thin plot, "pretty much like a zombie movie, but without zombies," and said the series keeps that feeling while carrying thicker, more layered stories.¹

Sayoc training. The production hired fight instructor Ralph Kayanan, who trains Hollywood actors in knife fighting and particularly in Sayoc, a Filipino martial art that, according to Matti, is used by the US Navy SEALs. Kayanan stayed in the Philippines for more than a year and returned to finish the remaining 20 days, giving the fight scenes what Matti called a fresh martial-arts feel.¹ Curtis said in February 2026 that the cast had been training for about two years and were still rehearsing fight scenes during production.¹⁰

Production

Principal photography officially began on April 15, 2024, after script readings and stunt, fight, and horseback rehearsals. The shoot lasted more than two years, with 80 shooting days for Curtis, Anderson, and their co-stars, and wrapped on July 4, 2026. The final day of shooting used three production units across three locations: Maragondon in Cavite, Malate, and Intramuros in Manila. The series is a joint production venture of Studio Viva and Reality MM Studios.⁶^•⁵

Curtis said in June 2026 that the project had occupied about three years of her career and described it as tiring but worth it after seeing previews. In an interview around the project's unveiling, Matti said he intended viewers to see a different kind of action series and a different side of Curtis and Anderson.¹¹^•¹

Announcement and release

Netflix Philippines published the official announcement trailer on December 2, 2025, describing an equally gritty and intense action-thriller set in a dystopian Philippines, in which the lone survivor of a botched drug bust pursues justice and revenge in ways that increasingly blur the lines between good and evil.¹² A few days after that, Matti formally announced the series at the Creative Asia Forum, an event that Netflix and the Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival (JAFF) jointly hosted in Yogyakarta, Indonesia; there he showed the teaser on stage and took part in a conversation with the Indonesian director Joko Anwar.¹

On February 9, 2026, Netflix included BuyBust: The Undesirables in its Philippine 2026 slate, part of a lineup of five originals plus two co-productions with ABS-CBN and GMA, marking ten years of Netflix in the Philippines. It was listed under "rest of 2026" without a fixed date; several other slate titles carried dated releases, and press coverage noted that an exact release date for the series was not yet available.⁷^•¹³^•¹⁴

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026