When you see a headline announcing a "Flamin' Hot Cheetos-inspired movie," your mind easily jumps to conclusions. In this day and age, anything goes, even with branded entertainment. But this isn't exactly branded entertainment in the way we expect after movies like Battleship, The Lego Movie and Ouija. Variety reports that Fox Searchlight is producing a movie called Flamin' Hot, which is about the man who created the spicy flavor of the iconic Frito-Lay snack.
While regular Cheetos are going on 70 years, the Flamin' Hot variety was invented in 1991 by a janitor working at the food company, which also makes Doritos and, of course, Fritos and Lays chips. Richard Montañez, the son of immigrant farm workers and a high school dropout, started at Frito-Lay in the mid '70s and proposed the specific product to his bosses after growing disappointed in the company's lack of snacks catering to Latino customers.
Today, Flamin' Hot Cheetos are Frito-Lay's biggest seller, and Montañez is the Vice President of Multicultural Sales for PepsiCo America, the conglomerate that owns the snack food giant. He's also now one of the developers of his own biopic, alongside DeVon Franklin, who is best known for faith-based films such as Miracles from Heaven and last year's animated feature The Star. The screenplay will be written by Lewis Colick (Charlie St. Cloud).
Montañez's story is the sort of inspiring rags to riches, American Dream narrative fodder that Hollywood loves, and the most inspiring and compelling movies are made of the real-life people with more heartwarming uplifts, a la The Pursuit of Happyness, or more famous names, such as The Social Network. But then there's The Founder, which flopped either because it was too brand-oriented with its McDonald's logo on the poster or involved too unlikably ruthless a biographical figure.
Flamin' Hot will probably do well if it's not sold too heavily on it being "the Cheetos movie" or, appropriate to Montañez's groundbreaking idea, if it's marketed especially to a Latino audience.
