Flamin' Hot Cheetos Is Getting Its Own Movie Will a brand's signature snack take a bite out of the box office?

By Dan Bova

Cheetos

No, it's not a joke, and no, it's not as dumb as it sounds.

Variety reports that Fox Searchlight announced the production of Flamin' Hot, the true and inspiring story of a billion-dollar snack.

Inspiring? Yes. If you're not up on your finger-dust history, here's the short of it: In 1976, Mexican-born janitor Robert Montanez was working at the Frito-Lay's Rancho Cucamonga plant. A production line snafu left a batch of Cheetos naked, without its signature cheese dust. Montanez didn't want the food to go to waste, so he decided to flavor it on his own with a mixture of salt, lime and chile powder used to flavor Mexican grilled corn. "I see the corn man adding butter, cheese, and chile to the corn," he explained in an interview with Fox, "and thought, what if I add chile to a Cheeto?"

Related: How to Build a Billion-Dollar Brand

His creation caught the attention of Frito-Lay's president and eventually led to the company's best-selling snack. Montanez soon hung up his janitor mop and became vice president of multicultural sales at PepsiCo. Inspiring and delicious!

Dan Bova

Entrepreneur Staff

VP of Special Projects

Dan Bova is the VP of Special Projects at Entrepreneur.com. He previously worked at Jimmy Kimmel Live, Maxim, and Spy magazine. His latest books for kids include This Day in History, Car and Driver's Trivia ZoneRoad & Track Crew's Big & Fast Cars, The Big Little Book of Awesome Stuff, and Wendell the Werewolf

Read his humor column This Should Be Fun if you want to feel better about yourself.

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