“Selma” director Ava DuVernay will helm Disney’s “A Wrinkle in Time,” an adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s beloved and bestselling 1963 fantasy novel of the same name. “Frozen” writer and co-director Jennifer Lee has penned the script. The story centers on a young girl and her adventures in space and time in search of her scientist father who has mysteriously disappeared.
DuVernay has another huge gig on the table: DreamWorks wants the Sundance-winner to direct’ “Intelligent Life,” written by “Jurassic World” director Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly (“Jurassic World,” “Kong: Skull Island”). The sci-fi thriller follows a UN alien-liaison worker, played by Lupita Nyong’o, who turns out to be not of this world. (Interesting bit of trivia: DuVernay and Trevorrow are pals who met at Sundance 2012. Both premiered small films in Park City that went on to screen at international festivals — DuVernay’s “Middle of Nowhere” and Trevorrow’s “Safety Not Guaranteed.”)
This is not the first time that we’ve seen DuVernay’s named linked to such major features since the success of the monumental calling-card that was “Selma.” The director turned down Marvel’s offer to direct “Black Panther” because she was concerned that the studio’s “certain way of doing things,” as she put it, might ultimately restrict her creative control on the picture. As she explained in discussion with Women and Hollywood founder and editor Melissa Silverstein, “If there’s too much compromise, it really wasn’t going to be an Ava DuVernay film.”
It sounds like two bona fide Ava DuVernay films are on the way — and that’s definitely something worth celebrating.
[via Deadline]
