The trailer for the next Ava DuVernay movie is here! No, not her forthcoming Netflix deal about the Central Park Five, which was just announced. The filmmaker is very busy these days, which is all the more impressive because she’s been toggling between social justice fare (like her Oscar-nominated “13th,” her scathing, fiery doc about the history of racism and oppression in America) and “A Wrinkle in Time,” a $100 million Disney movie adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s sci-fi fantasy classic.
Published in 1963 and already adapted by Disney into a 2003 TV movie, “A Wrinkle in Time” concerns a girl (played in DuVernay’s version by Storm Reid) in search of her scientist father (Chris Pine), who has disappeared into an alternate dimension. On her mission she’s aided by three mysterious women, played by Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling, each with awesome duds and hair. There are tesseracts and creepy alternate universe suburbs right out of “Rick and Morty.” And there’s Zach Galifianakis, but even more excitingly there’s André Holland, the real MVP of Steven Soderbergh’s “The Knick,” as well.
“A Wrinkle in Time” will be by far the biggest film DuVernay has ever made; it’s her first fiction film since “Selma,” which followed two low-budget indies, “I Will Follow” and “Middle of the Road.” But Ava contains multitudes, and we’re glad to see a woman of color get the kind of big league graduation normally afforded young male tyros who go from some rando Sundance movie to “Jurassic World” or “Kong: Skull Island.” DuVernay gets to mess around with a long post-production period involving pricey special effects, and if Colin Trevorrow and Jordan Vogt-Roberts can handle that, so can a much more talented filmmaker with a lot of work under her belt.
“A Wrinkle in Time” doesn’t come out till March 9 of next year, so plenty of time to catch up on the source. The trailer is below:
