Netflix buys the rights to make first ever adaptation of 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'
The first ever screen adaptation of Nobel Prize winning author Gabriel García Márquez's classic novel One Hundred Years of Solitude is coming to Netflix.
The streaming service will be turning the 1967 magical realist masterwork into a Spanish language original series, the company said in a press release. The series will be shot mainly in Márquez's home country of Colombia, and will have the author's two sons as executive producers.
Rodrigo García, Márquez's eldest son, said that while their father, who passed away in 2014, was reluctant to sell the rights to his novel, the family trusts that the Netflix production will do his work justice.
"For decades our father was reluctant to sell the film rights to Cien Años de Soledad because he believed that it could not be made under the time constraints of a feature film, or that producing it in a language other than Spanish would not do it justice,” Rodrigo García said in the press release, adding that given that we live in "golden age of series," the time for an adaptation could "not be better."
Rodrigo García elaborated in an interview with The New York Times, saying that his father's main concern about adapting One Hundred Years of Solitude into a movie had been that the story is too big and complicated to tell in one or even two feature films.
One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the Buendía family through seven generations in a fictional town in Colombia.
Some fans of the novel expressed scepticism on social media at the idea of a screen adaption of the novel. Given the vastness of the story, and the fact that it belongs in the magical realist genre, it's not going to translate well onto the screen, writer Kara Brown said in a thread of tweets that received over 1,7 K likes.
"Anyone who has read it and actually understands it knows this book cannot and should not be a made into a movie," Kara Brown wrote.
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Vice President of Spanish Language Originals for Netflix, Francisco Ramos, said in Netflix's press release that the company is "thrilled" to be trusted with the work of adapting the iconic novel.
"We are incredibly honoured to be entrusted with the first filmed adaptation of One Hundred Years of Solitude, a timeless and iconic story from Latin America that we are thrilled to share with the world,” Ramos said.
Netflix has had great success with Spanish language content in the past, such as hit series Narcos and the Oscar nominated movie Roma.
