MGM to Develop Novel ‘Tortilla Curtain’ into a TV Drama

MGM Television has closed a deal with creator/showrunners Will Scheffer and Mark Olsen (“Big Love,” “Getting On”) to adapt T.C. Boyle’s PEN/Faulkner immigration-themed novel The Tortilla Curtain into a scripted drama. Published in 1995, the novel is the most successful of all of T.C. Boyle’s works, and has been part of the curriculum of hundreds of schools around the world since its publication.

“Tortilla Curtain” is described as a darkly comedic look at immigration through the lens of a liberal white couple living in an upscale housing development atop Topanga Canyon and the undocumented Mexican couple living in the ravine below. Their lives become forever enmeshed when the white man hits the Mexican man with his car and flees the scene.

There is no specific outlet at present committed to this TV series version of “Tortilla Curtain.”