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Eva Longoria picked a story that hits close to home.«This story resonated with me because this story is my story,» the actress and producer says of her new biopic, in ET's exclusive behind-the-scenes featurette. «Not the desire to have more, but to be more.»based on the memoir tells the story of Richard Montañez, a former janitor at Frito-Lay who claims to have invented the iconic Flamin' Hot Cheetos.«It's not just being the underdog, or a rags-to-riches story,» Longoria explains of her film, out on Hulu and Disney+ today.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Netflix is ready to use “The Crown,” “Squid Game” and other signature series to take ad dollars from rival streamers. The company says it will start to offer so-called “title sponsorships” to advertisers ready to align with the new reality series “Squid Game: The Challenge” and the final season of “The Crown” as part of its bid to accelerate the utility of its ad-supported tier.

**Editor’s Note: This episode of Scene 2 Seen was taped before the July 14th start of the actor’s strike.

Peter Debruge A relatable, realistic fable about the unbreakable friendship between an Italian city boy and the small-town kid he meets one summer in the Alps, this quietly profound portrait spans almost four decades in the lives of its two protagonists, who stay in touch, even as their paths veer in very different directions. One feels a wanderlust that calls him to the far corners of the world — including the heights of Tibet at one point — while the other stays close to home, finding solace in the familiar.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Eva Longoria jokes that she’s taking an extended vacation to get some rest after her whirlwind promotion of “Flamin’ Hot,” her feature film directorial debut. “I am going to sleep for about three months,” Longoria told me Thursday morning. “When I come up for air, I hopefully will know what I’m doing next.” Joking aside, she said, “I will tell you it’s been very difficult. I’ve been sent many scripts already. I’ve been reading so much, but there’s nothing so far that has sparked in me the intense passion that I had for telling this particular story. “I was asking my agent, ‘Do I have to feel this way about every story I want to direct? Because I haven’t felt it yet,'” Longoria continued. “He said that should be the bar.”

Flamin’ Hot, a recently released Hulu and Disney+ movie and the directorial debut of Eva Longoria, is the latest project to get a special screening at the White House.

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer The first time Jesse Garcia (“Quinceañera,” “Narcos: Mexico”) learned about Richard Montañez — the former Frito-Lay executive who’s said that he invented the wildly successful Flamin’ Hot Cheetos brand when he was working as a janitor for the company — the actor immediately thought, “That would be an awesome movie.” Years later, Eva Longoria cast Garcia to play Montañez for her feature directing debut, “Flamin’ Hot,” which premieres June 9 on Hulu and Disney+. The film, produced by DeVon Franklin (“Breakthrough,” “Miracles From Heaven”), covers Richard’s life from his difficult childhood to his marriage to his high school sweetheart Judy (Annie Gonzalez) to his rise at Frito-Lay. For Garcia, it was an all-too-rare opportunity to depict the real-life story of a Latino family in a mainstream feature film.

Eva Longoria is stepping out for a special screening of her new movie!

Eva Longoria's new film,, is a passion project years in the making.ET spoke with the actress and director at opening night of the Los Angeles Latino Film Festival on Wednesday, where she opened up about her feature directorial debut, which tells the real-life story of Richard Montañez, a former janitor at Frito-Lay who claims to have invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos.«I'm so proud,» she raved. «I'm proud of this story. I'm proud of this cast and crew… It's a beautiful story.

Eva Longoria said Tuesday that female directors of color don’t get as many chances as White men in Hollywood.  "I felt the weight of my community, I felt the weight of every female director because we don’t get a lot of bites at the apple," the "Desperate Housewives" alum said at Cannes of her feature directorial debut "Flamin’ Hot" during the Kering Women in Motion talk.  Longoria, who has directed episodes of "Black-ish" and "Jane the Virgin," said she realized the last Latina-directed studio film was 20 years ago.  "We can’t get a movie every 20 years," she said. "So the problem is if this movie fails people go, ‘Oh, Latino stories don’t work.’ ‘Oh, female directors really don’t cut it.’" She added, "We don’t get a lot of at-bats.

Eva Longoria has shifting her focus to behind the camera, utilizing the experience she’s gained directing episode television for her feature directorial debut with “Flamin’ Hot”.

Eva Longoria put Hollywood on notice during her Kering Women in Motion talk at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. The “Desperate Housewives” alum, who was joined by University of Southern California Annenberg professor and researcher Dr. Stacy L. Smith, is making her feature directorial debut with “Flamin’ Hot,” an inspirational story about a Frito-Lay janitor who invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. The film won an audience award at the SXSW Film Festival. As a female director, a first-time director and a Latina director, Longoria said she “felt the weight of my community” and “the weight of every female director” when production started on “Flamin’ Hot.” Speaking with Variety chief correspondent Elizabeth Wagmeister, Longoria noted that Hollywood does not play fair when it comes to films directed by women flopping versus male directors. There can be no margin of error for a director like Longoria, as one flop could cost her another directorial gig, she says.

trailer for Searchlight Pictures’ “Flamin’ Hot,” the feature directorial debut of Eva Longoria which tells the supposed origin story of the most famous flavor of Cheetos ever made. “Flamin’ Hot” stars Jesse Garcia as Richard Montañez, the son of migrant workers who rose from being a janitor at Frito-Lay’s factory in Rancho Cucamonga to becoming one of the snack company’s marketing executives who helped rapidly grow sales of its products among Latinos.

Flamin’ Hot, directed by Eva Longoria, tells the origin story of a Frito Lay janitor who created the iconic Flamin’ Hot Cheetos snack.

Eva Longoria's upcoming biopic, appropriately titled, The film is based on a memoir of the same name by Richard Montañez, a former Frito-Lay janitor who rose through the ranks at the company after he claimed to invent the now-iconic Flamin' Hot seasoning.In the first trailer for the film, which dropped on Wednesday, viewers see Montañez's journey to take the snack industry by storm.The film features  star Jesse Garcia as Montañez, and Annie Gonzalez as his wife, Judy — in addition to Tony Shalhoub, Dennis Haysbert, Emilio Rivera, Matt Walsh, Pepe Serna and more.While some controversy over the degree of Montañez's involvement in the creation of Flamin' Hot Cheetos has come under some scrutiny in the past few years — particularly after the  published an investigation digging into the snack's presumed creator — Longoria told ET at the Palm Springs International Film Festival earlier this year that it was important to her to tell the story of a migrant laborer-turned-PepsiCo executive.«This story was really important to me,» she shared. «Richard Montañez is a real person, so to do him justice, to do a biopic, is hard as well — and a period piece.

Julia MacCary editor Hulu dropped its first trailer for “Flamin’ Hot,” an Eva Longoria-directed film about Mexican immigrant and former Frito-Lay janitor Richard Montañez, who claims he invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. The film, streaming June 9, stars Jesse Garcia as Montañez, as well as Annie Gonzales, Dennis Haysbert, Tony Shalhoub, Matt Walsh and Emilio Rivera. Montañez’s story is that while he was working as a custodian at the Rancho Cucamonga Frito-Lay plant, he thought of spicing up Cheetos with chile powder. He contacted executives to pitch the snack and subsequently outsmarted corporate saboteurs, leading him to become a successful author and businessman.

Eva Longoria is on a mission to inspire with her upcoming movie, Flamin’ Hot.

Eva Longoria is getting ready to release her feature directorial debut “Flamin’ Hot”, which is set to have an unprecedented release debuting on both Hulu and Disney+ on June 9, 2023.

EXCLUSIVE: Following the movie’s world premiere at SXSW, Searchlight Pictures’ Eva Longoria feature directorial debut, Flamin’ Hot, will stream on both Hulu and Disney+ on June 9. It’s the first time that a new movie has been made available on both of the Disney-owned OTT services stateside. The pic will stream on Disney+ overseas.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Eva Longoria’s upcoming movie “Flamin’ Hot” will premiere simultaneously on Disney+ and Hulu, marking the first feature film to debut on both platforms. Following its world premiere at SXSW, the Searchlight Pictures film will debut to streaming service subscribers on June 9. It will also be available on Disney+ internationally. “I’m so excited for the world to see ‘Flamin’ Hot’ on these two streaming platforms making this universal, inspirational story accessible to an even wider audience,” said Longoria, who directed the film in her feature filmmaking debut. “Now everyone can celebrate the joy, power and heart of this film that also happens to uplift Latinos both in front of and behind the camera.”

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer Eva Longoria’s feature directorial debut, “Flamin’ Hot,” had audiences on fire at its world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival on March 11 — while deftly navigating the controversy surrounding the film’s subject without ever addressing it by name. The movie is based on the life of former Frito-Lay executive Richard Montañez, played by Jesse Garcia (“Quinceañera,” “Narcos: Mexico”), who has said that he was responsible for inventing the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos brand when he was working as a janitor for the company.  Before “Flamin’ Hot” went into production in 2021, however, Montañez’s claims were disputed by a Los Angeles Times report in which Frito-Lay stated that an internal investigation turned up no evidence that “Richard was involved in any capacity in the Flamin’ Hot test market” in 1990. Instead, the Times’ story attributed a Frito-Lay factory in the Midwest with spearheading the Flamin’ Hot brand and credited Montañez for helping to bring to market the Flamin’ Hot Popcorn brand and a line of spicy products called Sabrositas.

Eva Longoria is gracing the red carpet!

Biopics, especially those that err on the side of mainstream and are helmed by a major studio, can and do go wrong. From bad casting to lacking scripts, to directorial faux-pas and even sensational stories that muddle the truth, the world has had its fair share of flawed glimpses into the lives of history’s most compelling people.

There can be no doubt why Searchlight Pictures was excited to bring Flamin’ Hot, the true life story of the man known as the ‘godfather of hispanic marketing’, to the screen. Premiering today at SXSW, the life story of Richard Montanez — a high school dropout from a struggling Latino family who worked as a janitor in a Southern California Frito-Lay factory for 10 years — is, at its heart, really a Rocky-style inspirational tale perfect for the Hollywood treatment. He eventually realized the American dream and rose to one the highest ranks of the company,

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Americans can’t get enough of processed corn. They eat it for breakfast, in cereal form, and all throughout the day, snacking on cookies and crackers and chips, often washing it down with soda (sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, naturally). Premiering at the SXSW Film Festival, “Flamin’ Hot” tells the backstory of Frito-Lay’s insanely popular, ultra-spicy line of snack chips — the ones that singe your taste buds and stain your fingers a radioactive red — as marketing guru Richard Montañez lays it out in his memoir, “A Boy, a Burrito, and a Cookie: From Janitor to Executive.” After a rough start selling drugs and hustling on the streets of East Los Angeles, Montañez got a job cleaning the machines at Frito-Lay’s Rancho Cucamonga plant and worked his way up to head of Multicultural marketing. Along the way, he may or may not have invented the recipe for Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Doritos, et al.

Walter White wants you to say its name.

She’s keeping up with the Kardashians — and the Davidsons. Martha Stewart exclusively told Us Weekly about her run-in with Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Super Bowl 2022 may still be days away, but that hasn’t stopped brands from making the most of their marketing budgets with the ads they plan to play during the big game’s uber-expensive commercial slots. This year’s face-off between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals will take place on Sunday 13 February at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, California.

Super Bowl 2022 may still be days away, but that hasn’t stopped brands from making the most of their marketing budgets with the ads they plan to play during the big game’s uber-expensive commercial slots. This year’s face-off between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals will take place on Sunday 13 February at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, California.

AMC Entertainment has hired former Frito-Lay, Pepsico and Hostess Brands executive Ellen Copaken to the new position of Vice President, Growth Strategy to lead recently announced initiatives like entering the retail popcorn industry.

Frito-Lay is bringing out some big names for the big game.

From football to fatherhood! Eli Manning struggled to succeed as both an athlete and a parent while playing for the NFL.