Sony Buys Two Scripts From Rising Latina Writer Emilia Serrano (EXCLUSIVE)

By Ricardo Lopez

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Sony has bought two scripts from Emilia Serrano, a rising Latina TV writer, for two feature comedies being developed by Sony’s Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions, Variety has learned.

Emilia Serrano has been a writer on shows like “My Generation,” “The Finder,” and “Cristela.” Serrano, a daughter of Mexican immigrants, often writes about her upbringing in the Bay Area where she was raised by a mariachi-singing mother and mechanic father.

The scripts sold would be her first work in feature films.

The first is an untitled Columbia Pictures project produced by Noah Hawley’s 26 Keys and Pascal Pictures, a cultural coming-of-age story about a career-driven Latina American during her “double quinceañera” — celebrated at age 30 because she missed having her first quinceñera at 15. She invites her parents, best friends, and brazen married cousin to a work trip disguised as a double quince, inviting trouble that could jeopardize her job and her relationships.

The second script is a Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions comedy overseen by Alex Zahn, a VP at Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions, who is focusing on developing a slate of films with Latinx themes. (Latinx is the increasingly popular gender-neutral form of Latino.)

“The Throwdown” takes a comedic look at gentrification and the culture clash around food when two Latina American cousins from the Bay Area find themselves fighting over an inherited rundown restaurant and the one thing that originally brought their families together — their late grandfather’s family recipes. The neighborhood will take sides, cousins will take jabs, and this family will take on the stories around a different kind of food fight.

Serrano is repped by Katie Cates and Niki Montazaran at ICM, Kimberly Carver and Jermaine Johnson at 3 Arts, and attorney Patti Felker.