ABC/Paula Lobo
(NEW YORK) — While it couldn’t beat Black Panther at the box office, director Ava DuVernay was able to make box office magic with her latest film, Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time, which grossed over $33 million in its opening weekend.
In making the film, DuVernay admits she was well aware of the cinematic challenges of producing a live-action adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle‘s beloved children’s book.
“Yeah, I know a lot of people told me this was an unadaptable book,” DuVernay tells ABC Radio. “That’s why it hadn’t been made into a film — a feature film — in so many years. Decades, in fact. And it is. It was quite a puzzle to put together.”
Yet, even with the film’s limitations in bringing the book’s various worlds to the big screen, DuVernay believes taking on the imaginative project was well “worth it.”
“But, it was worth it to me to have a film that centered on this girl and for Disney to want to hold hands on making this girl of color,” DuVernay explains. “And making all of the cast be really reflective of the world — in the real world that I thought, ‘You know what it might be tough to adapt, but the let’s try it.'”
Some of those reflective efforts included the star-studded cast of Oprah Winfrey, Mindy Kaling, Reese Witherspoon and newcomer Storm Reid, who served as the film’s “warriors of light.”
DuVernay continues, “And so we were able to contemporize some of Madeleine L’Engle’s great ideas and just bring it into a new century.”
A Wrinkle in Time is now out in theaters from Disney, parent company of ABC News.
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