Netflix has acquired rights to adapt Gabriel García Márquez’s masterwork “One Hundred Years of Solitude” as a new series. The project marks the first screen adaptation of the landmark novel.
Netflix will produce a Spanish-language original series based on the novel, first published in 1967. It has since sold an estimated 50 million copies worldwide and has been translated into 46 languages. The Nobel Prize-winning author died in 2014 at 87.
García Márquez’s sons Rodrigo Garcia and Gonzalo García Barcha will serve as executive producers on the series, which will be filmed mainly in Colombia. Netflix didn’t announce other details for the “One Hundred Years of Solitude” project.
“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 Garcia said in a statement.
But, he added, “in the current golden age of series, with the level of talented writing and directing, the cinematic quality of content, and the acceptance by worldwide audiences of programs in foreign languages, the time could not be better to bring an adaptation to the extraordinary global viewership that Netflix provides. We are excited to support Netflix and the filmmakers in this venture, and eager to see the final product.”
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“One Hundred Years of Solitude” is a sprawling story about the life — and death — of the mythical town of Macondo, told through the history of seven generations of the Buendía family over the course of a century. The novel, one of the seminal works of 20th century Latin American fiction, is a classic in the magical-realism genre.
In the Netflix deal, García Márquez’s estate was repped by WME, attorney Shelley Surpin, and the Agencia Literaria Carmen Balcells.
“We are incredibly honored 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,” said Francisco Ramos, Netflix’s VP of Spanish-language originals. “We know our members around the world love watching Spanish-language films and series, and we feel this will be a perfect match of project and our platform.”
Netflix has found a global audience for other Spanish-language originals, including Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma,” which won three 2019 Academy Awards, and three seasons of “Narcos,” a series about Pablo Escobar’s Colombian cocaine cartel set in the late ’80s.