FLAMIN’ HOT’s Devon Franklin: ‘We Walk By Faith’
By Movieguide® Staff
Producer Devon Franklin recently reflected on the unique story of Frito Lay’s ‘flamin’ hot’ line of snacks inventor, Richard Montañez.
Franklin set out to tell Richard’s story in his latest movie, FLAMIN’ HOT.
A portion of Movieguide®’s review reads:
FLAMIN’ HOT tells the life story of Richard Montañez, a Mexican American boy who becomes a very successful executive for Frito Lay by inventing flaming hot versions of Frito Lay snacks. Streaming on Hulu and Disney Plus, the movie shows Richard’s difficult life as a Mexican American living in the greater Los Angeles area. It shows how he met his future wife, Judy, and how he joined a gang as a teenager. When Judy gets pregnant in 1982, Richard gives up the gang life and gets a job at Pepsi Frito Lay. He and Judy become Christians, and Richard comes up with an idea to create flaming hot Frito products.
FLAMIN’ HOT is a powerful story of how a poor person can succeed in a free market society. You can succeed if you put your mind to it, especially with a little help from your friends and family. The movie contains strong positive Christian content, though some Christians are hypocritical and must grasp the love of Jesus. FLAMIN’ HOT contains some reverse racism and white stereotypes, however, plus some foul language.
Franklin, producer of MIRACLES FROM HEAVEN and BREAKTHROUGH, recently sat down with Movieguide® to discuss Montañez’s unique story.
“I’m honored to be able to produce this movie and bring this story to the world,” Franklin told Movieguide®. “I met the subject of this story, Richard Montañez, I met him about almost seven years ago now and when he and his wife Judy came into my office I said to them, tell me your story. As he told me to hit their story I was just blown away and by the end of the meeting I said to them okay I’m gonna do this and I didn’t know how I was going to get it done but I was so connected to just the uniqueness of his story I just knew that I had to figure out a way to make this a reality.”
A central theme of FLAMIN’ HOT is Richard’s relationship to his wife Judy, and their fervent support for one another.
“That was something that we really wanted to bring into the movie because you can’t tell Richard’s story without telling Judy’s as well,” he said. “They’ve been married for decades and her supporting him, him supporting her, it was such an integral part of their real life story that including it in the movie was a necessity.”
“Our thing is we just want to get it right,” Franklin added. “I think that’s one of the surprising things about the film was people aren’t expecting this kind of dynamic love story that is the through-line of the entire movie. The payoff of what you’ve seen is very satisfying and it’s very emotional so you know we wanted to incorporate it because it was essential to their real life story.”
Franklin hopes that Christians will connect with FLAMIN’ HOT due to its biblical themes having trust and faith when the end is not always clear.
“We walk by faith not by sight, and when you see this film so much of what happens in the film has everything to do with him having a belief that there is something greater for him that he can help save jobs at the factory and he has this crazy idea and this crazy vision,” Franklin said. “That is what faith is, faith is seeing the unseen, walking by faith, not by sight.”
“Also what I love is that at the beginning he’s a skeptic and then to see him during the course of the film become a believer, I want when people, if they see the film, first of all to have more compassion and more patience for non-believers,” he continued. “Because everyone’s on God’s timeline right? So often we want to rush people to become something that they aren’t ready to be and that’s okay, just continue to be a good example.”
In FLAMIN’ HOT, it shows that Richard’s marriage to Judy is a great example of faith as he pursues his vision at work.
“Judy is standing in her faith in the film even when Richard isn’t standing in his,” Franklin noted. “But she doesn’t chastise him about it, she just leads by example; let’s bring prayer into the home, let’s value prayer and at first he doesn’t want to have anything to do with it.”
He added: “But over the course of the film, he sees that ‘wow, there is something to this prayer thing, there is something to what is going on in Judy’s life.’ So my hope is that people of faith will see this film and something similar will happen in their lives where if they’re not a believer this could start the journey of that, and if they already are a believer, it’ll give them more compassion for non-believers.”
FLAMIN’ HOT is currently available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu.
- Content: +4Share:
- Content: +1