Eva Longoria to Direct Biopic About the Creator of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos

As first reported by Deadline, Eva Longoria is set to be the director of Fox Searchlight’s Flamin’ Hot, a biopic about the creator behind Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. While you may be saying to yourself “Wait, what?” just now, this is actually a film that was first revealed to the public about a year-and-a-half ago, and it’s more of a rags-to-riches story than it is some goofy account of cornmeal snacks.

The movie is set to tell the true story of Richard Montanez, who went from janitor to inventor to executive after masterminding the idea behind the spicy hot snacking staple. The film is set to trace Montanez’s life, as he grew up in a SoCal migrant labor camp living with 10 siblings in a one bedroom apartment.

After getting a job as a janitor at Frito-Lay, Montanez came up with the idea for Flamin’ Hot Cheetos after an assembly line machine broke down and a batch of Cheetos didn’t get dusted with that standard orange stuff. CNBC reports that he took the untainted batch home to experiment upon, which he did with chili powder, and shortly afterward he was pitching his concoction to the company’s CEO.

Now that we’ve potentially spoiled it all for you, Lewis Colick (the writer behind October Sky and Charlie St. Cloud) has already written the script.

As for Longoria, she has additional projects in the works in the form of Universal’s 24/7 (in which she’ll star with Kerry Washington). Also, she’s set to star in Dora the Explorer.

She’s said to have won this directing job over multiple applicants because producer DeVon Franklin, as well as the higher-ups at Fox, liked “her authentic approach” to laying out Montanez’s story.