MGM, Big Love duo cook up Tortilla Curtain

LA-based MGM Television has struck a deal with the showrunners behind HBO drama Big Love to make a series based on TC Boyle’s immigration-themed novel The Tortilla Curtain.

Will Scheffer and Mark Olsen will spearhead the drama, one of their first projects outside of HBO, where they had collaborated under an overall deal since 2006.

MGM will produce and will supervise the writing of the adaptation, with US-based film/TV packaging firm HertzbergMedia’s Alex Hertzberg and Nice Media Studio’s Sam Sokolow executive producing. MGM will distribute internationally.

Lindsay Sloane, MGM’s senior exec VP of television production and development, will oversee the series for MGM Television.

The Tortilla Curtain is a darkly comedic novel published in 1995 that looks at immigration through the lens of a liberal white couple living above a ravine in which an undocumented Mexican couple are trying to survive.

Stark said Scheffer and Olsen’s “knack for tackling fresh takes on provocative subject matters blew us away when they first sat down with us to talk about their vision for Tortilla Curtain.”

The duo added that the material was “beyond timely” and that the “themes are rich and profound.”