With numerous projects in active development for its primary streaming service Disney+, it’s easy to forget that Disney also has so much also going on over at Hulu. Olga Dies Dreaming is the latest.
Based on the yet-to-be-released debut novel by Xochitl Gonzalez and set to be produced by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl), the series will follow a pair of siblings from New York as they attempt to reconcile with their estranged mother in the days prior to Hurricane Maria.
According to Deadline, not only has the series been green-lit, but it’s begun casting too. Gonzalez will pen the script for the pilot, while Gomez-Rejon is expected to direct. He reportedly became fascinated with the project after reading it in manuscript form.
A relative newcomer to the industry, Gonzalez previously worked as an entrepreneur and consultant. After deciding that she wanted to pursue a career in writing however, she enrolled in the University of Iowa and received her MFA and became both an Iowa Arts Fellow and the recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Prize in Fiction. Since graduating, she’s been published in Vogue and The Cut just to name a few outlets.
While her novel is due out in January of 2022, you can read the full synopsis below:
Olga Dies Dreaming follows Olga and Prieto, a pair of successful New York siblings with Puerto Rican roots, as they navigate a tense reunion with their estranged mother, Blanca, in the days leading up to the devastation of Hurricane Maria. Nearly 30 years ago, Blanca — a member of the Young Lords — left her two children behind to become a militant activist. By the time 2017 rolls around, her children have carved out their own paths: Prieto’s become a Congressman representing their Latinx Brooklyn neighborhood, and Olga has established herself as a wedding planner to the New York elite. But as the storm approaches Puerto Rico, so does Blanca come back into her children’s lives, forcing them all to reckon with their family legacy. Deadline not only has the planned one hour series already received a pilot order, but it’s already casting too.
Source: Deadline
