Netflix to Develop ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ For Screen

The celebrated author Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s critically acclaimed novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude” will be adapted for the screen, Netflix announced Wednesday, on his 92nd birth anniversary.

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The novel, published in 1967, will be adapted as a series for the first time on screen as Marquez never allowed it.

The Nobel Prize winner’s son Rodrigo Garcia, who will serve as an executive producer on the project, said that his father had received multiple offers to develop the novel for the screen but he denied fearing that the story will not translate well or fit in one single movie or even two. He also wanted the movie to be made in Spanish.

“Netflix was among the first to prove that people are more willing than ever to see series that are produced in foreign languages with subtitles. All that seems to be a problem that is no longer a problem,” Garcia said.

For Francisco Ramos, vice president for Spanish language originals at Netflix, successes of series like “Narcos” and films like “Roma” have proved “we can make Spanish-language content for the world.”

“I’ve been hearing the discussion about whether or not to sell the rights to ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ since I was 8,” Garcia said. “It was not an uncomplicated decision to make, for myself and my brother and my mom. It feels like a great chapter opened, but also a long chapter has closed.”

Marquez, a renowned socialist and anti-imperialist, told the story of the Buendia family in the fictitious town named Macondo in Colombia in “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” It is celebrated as a masterpiece of Latin American literature.

The writer and cast of the series are not yet known but Ramos promised to work with the best talents in Latin America. It will be shot in Colombia.

“We know it’s going to be very magical and very important for Colombians and Latin America, but the novel is universal,” he said.