Bolívar

The series was created as Caracol Televisión's landmark production for the company's 50th anniversary and for the bicentennial of Colombia's independence, which reportedly subjected it to 'unequaled scrutiny'.

Before settling on Juana Uribe as showrunner and head writer, producers considered influences from top Colombian telenovelas like Yo soy Betty, la fea and talent such as screenwriter Julio Jimenez and actor Diego Álvarez; Uribe then brought on two historians, a researcher, and three writers who had read nearly every existing biography of Bolívar.

About 400 actors and 6,000 extras were used across the series, which used three Bolívars (child, young adult, adult) played respectively by Colombian actor Maximiliano Gómez and Venezuelans José Ramón Barreto and Luis Gerónimo Abreu.

To land the role of young Bolívar, José Ramón Barreto borrowed a stallion from a friend's riding club, dressed up as Bolívar, and sent producers a self-made demonstration video of his horseback riding skills; he had actually expected to be cast as Juan Vicente rather than Simón, since he did not think he physically resembled Bolívar.

To prepare for playing Manuela Sáenz, actress Shany Nadan trained with three acting coaches for several months and took horseback riding lessons to explore the character's personality.

Filming began on 7 March 2018 in Cartagena and used three production units shooting simultaneously from March through September 2018, with locations across Colombia including Villa de Leyva, Monguí, Santa Fe de Antioquia, Cali, Popayán, Los Nevados National Natural Park, El Páramo de Oceta, and the Eastern Plains, as well as scenes shot in Spain (Toledo, Aranjuez, Pedraza) and on the Venezuela-Colombia border.

Producer Asier Aguilar said that finding locations to recreate Venezuela's biodiverse historical settings was especially difficult, citing how they had to recreate a low-lying coastal Vargas swamp in a town near Boyacá, located 3,000 metres up in the Andes mountains.

Before its premiere, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro publicly criticized the series, insisting Bolívar was Venezuelan not Colombian and accusing Colombia of running a 'hate campaign'; he later apologized in August 2019 and congratulated the actors, with commentators framing his early criticism as a Streisand effect that boosted interest in the show.

Venezuelan historian Inés Quintero publicly criticized the series' historical accuracy, pointing out inaccuracies such as depicting Bolívar's uncle Pablo Clemente y Palacios as intellectually disabled and portraying Francisco de Miranda as a traitor to the independence cause.