A Movie About Flamin' Hot Cheetos Is On The Way, And Eva Longoria Is Directing It

The upcoming biopic about Richard Montanez, the creator of Flamin' Hot Cheetos, has found its director. Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria will direct the film, according to Deadline. The movie is being produced at Fox Searchlight, the movie studio that made Oscar-winning movies like Slumdog Millionaire, 12 Years a Slave, Birdman, and The Shape of Water; the company is now owned by Disney.

According to Deadline, there were multiple contenders for the Flamin' Hot job, and Longoria won out after wowing Fox and producer Devon Franklin with her "authentic approach to portraying" the story.

A movie about Flamin' Hot Cheetos might sound pretty out-there, but the story of Montanez is so compelling that it was likely only a matter of time before it became a movie. Montanez was a janitor at Frito-Lay before creating the snack and amassing untold wealth.

Montanez is the son of an immigrant and worked on farms picking grapes in southern California. He later got a job as a janitor at Cheetos manufacturer Frito-Lay, and during his time cleaning toilets there in the '70s, he came up with the idea for a new variety of Cheetos.

According to a report, Montanez got the idea for a hot variety of Cheetos while he was eating a cup of corn. "I see the corn man adding butter, cheese, and chile to the corn and thought, 'What if I add chile to a Cheeto?'" he recalled.

According to the report, Montanez bolted into his mother's kitchen and whipped up some spices for a test version of the snack. He apparently called the president of Frito-Lay to propose his new flavour and was given two weeks to prepare a presentation. The president apparently loved the idea, and the Flamin' Hot variety is now among Frito-Lay's best-selling products worldwide. Montanez is currently an executive at PepsiCo, which owns Frito-Lay.

The Flamin' Hot movie is being written by Lewis Colick, who previously wrote October Sky and Ladder 49. There is no word yet as to who will play Montanez in the Flamin' Hot movie or when it will release.