After wowing readers for decades, Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time will get the big budget movie treatment under the direction of Selma's Ava DuVernay. There's quite a bit to be excited about when this science fiction epic finally debuts, but it seems that fans of the source material should prepare for some reasonably notable changes to the original text. During a visit to the set of A Wrinkle in Time last year, Mrs. Whatsit actress Reese Witherspoon opened up to CinemaBlend and other outlets and said:
I really was excited when Ava explained her vision for the film. She wasn't going to do sort of 'classic' ... Because I read the book as a little girl. And she was like, 'I'm going to deviate a lot. I want to have the house in Downtown LA. I want the kids to be all different ethnicities. I want kids to watch this movie and know that anything's possible.' I get emotional thinking how little kids going to the theater to actually see a character and an actor that looks like them makes them think it's possible. And also, to have women who are heroes, who are all different sizes and all different races, because women are the heroes of a lot of kids' lives. To see that properly represented is way overdue and exciting. I think it's exciting to have a director with that kind of vision, and Disney's belief in her to give her an incredible amount of creative control and free reign to create this magic.
Madeleine L'Engle's original A Wrinkle in Time was published back in 1962, and it sounds like Ava DuVernay and the cast of the film really want to update the story for 2018. Instead of doing a straight adaptation of the story, DuVernay seems to be taking the basics of the narrative and playing with the setting and aesthetic. It will still tell the same basic story, but it will also filter it through a very different lens than traditionalists might expect.
One of the principal changes that we have already seen is the fact that the Earth-bound sequences in the film will take place in Downtown Los Angeles, and another significant difference is the fact that the characters in A Wrinkle in Time don't necessarily look like how they're described in the book. Specifically, Meg Murry is described as a redheaded girl in the original novel, but Meg Murry actress Storm Reid is African-American. Similarly, many members of the cast don't look like their literary counterparts, and that all stems back to the mentality of creating a more diverse and representative take on the story.
Many of the changes noted by Reese Witherspoon seem to highlight ways that Ava DuVernay wanted to tell a story that deviated from traditional Disney clichés or traditions. In fact, in an interview with the director elsewhere during the set visit, DuVernay actually opened up and explained how her take on A Wrinkle in Time will have a darker and edgier sensibility than some tend to expect from a film produced under the Disney banner. So, if you think you know what to expect in this movie if you have read the book, then you might want to think again.
If you want a closer look at Ava DuVernay's A Wrinkle in Time, then check out a trailer for the upcoming sci-fi adventure, below!
Audiences will get a chance to see all of the changes that Ava DuVernay has made to the original A Wrinkle in Time source material when the film debuts in theaters next month on March 9! Tickets for the film go on sale tomorrow, so make sure to get yours and start gearing up for the long-awaited Disney adventure!
