Selma Director Ava DuVernay Is Taking On A Childhood Classic

Ava DuVernay is about to make a lot of our childhood fantasies come true. According to Deadline, the Selma director set to direct Disney's movie version of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. Offering further assurance that this screen adaptation won't turn girl-powered fantasy to drivel, Frozen writer and co-director Jennifer Lee has already written a draft of the screenplay.

In case you never got around to devouring L'Engle's 1963 novel and its four sequels, A Wrinkle in Time follows 13-year-old Meg Murry, her mind-reading 5-year-old brother, Charles Wallace, and her schoolmate Calvin O'Keefe as they travel to another dimension in search of Meg and Charles' scientist father. The only previous screen adaptation of the book was a 2003 Canadian TV movie, the reception of which L'Engle herself summed up to Newsweek: "I expected it to be bad, and it is." Perhaps Disney will have better luck. The studio had been in talks with DuVernay for six months, according to Deadline, so we hope that means the Golden Globe-nominated director has already made careful demands to make this movie special. Will that mean a more racially diverse cast than a traditional reading of the book would imply? Will Disney pour everything its got into believable special effects? Will this be the beginning of a franchise? Maybe Mrs. Who, Mrs. Whatsit, and Mrs. Which will transport one of us to find out and report back to you. In the meantime, we have this retweet from DuVernay, quoting the late author.