Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Classic ‘One Hundred Years Of Solitude’ Is Being Adapted At Netflix
In 1967,Gabriel García Márquezpractically invented the magical realism genre with his bewitching, beguiling, baffling novelOne Hundred Years of Solitude. It’s a dense multi-generational saga of the Buendia family, chronicling their struggles and conflicts in the fictional Colombian town of Macondo. It’s a story that’s nigh unadaptable, and García Márquez refused to sell the film rights through his death in 2014. But nowNetflixhas acquired the rights to adapt the literary classic into a Spanish language series. Read more about theOne Hundred Years of SolitudeTV series below.
Deadlinereports that Netflix has picked up the rights to make theOne Hundred Years of SolitudeTV series, with García Márquez’s sonsRodrigo GarciaandGonzalo García Barchaon board as executive producers.
This forthcoming Spanish-language series would mark the first time thatOne Hundred Years of Solitudegets the screen treatment. However, his son Rodrigo Garcia gave a vote of confidence for Netflix, as the streaming service plans to adapt the novel into a TV series rather than a feature film. Garcia said in a statement to Deadline:
“For decades, our father was reluctant to sell the film rights toCien Años de Soledadbecause 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. But 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.”
Netflix vice president for Spanish language originals, Francisco Ramos, added, “We are incredibly honored to be entrusted with the first filmed adaptation ofOne Hundred Years of Solitude, a timeless and iconic story from Latin America that we are thrilled to share with the world. 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.”
The bestselling novel was a landmark achievement in Latin American literature, selling over 50 million copies and earning García Márquez acclaim and a Nobel Prize win in 1982.One Hundred Years of Solitudeis now considered a pivotal piece of world literature, akin to the “Don Quixoteof the Global South,” according toVanity Fair. But its unique brand of magical realism, in which obscure, fantastical elements sit comfortably alongside reality, makes it an incredibly difficult story to adapt. This is a dense novel that overloads you with names and imagery, some of which bleed together until the story seems altogether dreamlike. There’s betrayal, incest, and uncomfortable child marriages. Could anyone successfully make that into a TV series?
George R.R. Martin’sA Song of Ice and Fireseries was deemed unadaptable as well, butGame of Thronesmanaged to create a TV phenomenon out of a dense piece of high fantasy. But adding that magical realism element is another feat — though the genre is seeing sort of a golden age in film at the moment, with movies likeBurning, Sorry to Bother You, andHappy as Lazzarosuccessfully nailing the tone and surrealism of magical realism. Perhaps it could be pulled off, but it’s going to be hard.
