Like Water for Chocolate (Como Agua Para Chocolate)
Endemol Shine Studios has acquired the rights to Laura Esquivel’s best-selling novel Like Water for Chocolate (Como Agua Para Chocolate) to adapt as a global television franchise.
Endemol Shine Studios is developing the classic story as an English language series with plans to adapt it in other languages, as well.
“It fills me with joy to know that Like Water for Chocolate will be brought to television screens throughout the world by a studio that bets on quality in producing content for each of its projects. Of all the companies that offered to create the series, Endemol Shine Studios stood out in sharing a vision of Like Water for Chocolate closest to my own: leading from the heart,” says Esquivel.
Endemol Shine Studios president Sharon Hall stated, “The opportunity to adapt this beloved novel is a privilege. Laura’s epic love story has all the ingredients of a breakthrough drama.”
The deal was negotiated by Esquivel’s representatives, the Colchie Agency in New York on behalf of the Casanovas & Lynch Agency in Barcelona.
Like Water for Chocolate was first published in 1989 by Esquivel, a first-time Mexican novelist and quickly became a global sensation. The use of magical realism alongside a raucous family drama made the book an instant classic. To date, Like Water for Chocolate has sold 3.5 million copies in the U.S. through publishers Knopf Doubleday (English) and Vintage Espanol (Spanish). The novel spent a year and a half on the New York Times Bestseller list and has been published in 45 languages.
In 1992, a film based on the Esquivel’s screenplay adaptation of the novel was successfully released in Spanish, earning critical acclaim and numerous honors.
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