Disney and Brad Pitt’s Plan B are developing “Dr. Q” — a movie based on the life story of an illegal immigrant who became the head of brain tumor surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Matt Lopez, whose credits include the Civil War play “The Whipping Man,” has been tapped to write the screenplay about Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa. Plan B, which is run by Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, began working on the project in 2007 when execs heard about Quinones-Hinajosa on the radio.
Quinones-Hinojosa crossed into the United States from Mexico in the late 1980s when he was 19 and began working on farms in California. He started his education at San Joaquin Delta College and completed his bachelor’s degree at the University of California at Berkeley. He then received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and became a U.S. citizen.
He is currently a professor of neurosurgery and oncology at Johns Hopkins, where he serves as the director of the brain tumor program at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.
Tendo Nagenda, who worked at Plan B before joining Disney, is shepherding the project with Allison Erlikhman.
Pitt, Gardner and Kleiner won best picture Oscars two years ago for “12 Years a Slave” and were nominated this year for “The Big Short.”
Lopez also wrote “The Legend of Georgia McBride” and was a staff writer on HBO’s “The Newsroom.” He is repped by CAA.
The news was first reported by The Hollywood Reporter.
