After the phenomenal success of Salma Hayek and Silvio Horta’s Ugly Betty on ABC, the team has reunited for another drama-comedy at ABC and ABC Studios about a Latino family.
In a last-minute buy, the network has put in development the Hayek-Horta Bastards, teaming with producer Mark Gordon, who will also executive produce.
Written by Horta, Bastards centers on a colorful Cuban-American family who have their lives turned upside down when it’s revealed that the family patriarch had a child with the family maid over 25 years ago. Now his wife will do anything to protect her children’s inheritance and prevent her family’s deep dark secrets from ever seeing the light of day. Oh, the dazzling turmoil of a good old Latino telenovela!
Bastards is an idea by Hayek and she and Jose Tamez, her producing partner at their ABC-Studios based Ventanarosa, had been trying to tackle the premise for awhile and had teamed with Gordon’s Mark Gordon Prods., which also is under a deal at ABC Studios. Horta, who is of Cuban- American descent, recently received a call from Tamez and Mark Gordon Prods.’ drama executive Nicholas Pepper who was once Horta’s ABC executive on Ugly Betty.
“I immediately sparked to the concept — it was fun and juicy and had the opportunity for both a lot of salacious situations and humor as well as a lot of heart and emotions, hitting that sweet spot I like to write,” Horta said. Soon after the deal negotiations were in place, the team sold Bastards at ABC.
Back in 2005, others had taken a stab at adapting the popular telenovela Ugly Betty for American audiences before Horta, but his version stuck. “I hope history will repeat itself,” he said. Horta,
Last season, Horta wrote and executive produced another light drama about a Latino family at Fox. The project, based on an idea by Fox entertainment topper Kevin Reilly and executive produced by Jennifer Lopez, centered on three sisters and their interlinked lives. While it didn’t get to pilot, Fox kept the project alive and put it in redevelopment. He is now focusing on the Bastards script, which he has to write in a month. In addition to Bastards, Ventanarosa has The Cisco Kid, set with CBS and Lauren Shuler Donner producing.
With a name like Bastards, the new show is sure to ignite controversy. For people who are not loving all the Latino hoopla these days, we’ll for sure hear comments about why this type of show is not on Univision or Telemundo… not everyone is keen on all this Latino romancing by the networks.
We’re wishing Salma Hayek and Silvio Horta a repeat of the success that Ugly Betty, (adaptation of a Colombian telenovela) garnered two Golden Globes, an Emmy and other honors during its four years on the air.
As for the fate of Bastards, we’ll just have to wait to see if they can pull it off and the pilot gets picked up and slated for another primetime slot.
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