Ava DuVernay has become a staple of the entertainment industry in recent years, breaking barriers and being nominated for awards through projects like Selma, The 13th, and When They See Us. For a subset of fans, DuVernay is best known for helming the 2018 adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time, Disney’s blockbuster take on Madeleine L’Engle’s 1962 book. In a recent interview on The Team Deakins podcast, DuVernay reflected on the experience of filming A Wrinkle in Time, and revealed why she hasn’t been motivated to do more films within a larger studio system.
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“I wanted to make a studio picture. I wanted to know what that experience was like. Now I know,” DuVernay explained. “And so [laughs], it was an opportunity to play with a lot more money than I ever played with—it was a $100 million dollar budget—and it was a story that centered [on] a black girl, traveling the universe and saving the world, so there were a lot of elements that I’d never seen before. And I thought, ‘Let me try,’ The [studio] had an appetite to try and do it in a different way that was a little bit of a modern approach on the book. It was an experience that was so healthy for me in that I was able to learn—the best experiences are when you learn what you want and learn what you don’t want.”
“And I was able to walk away with that—having worked with a lot of beautiful craftspeople and cast, and to design fantasy costumes and work with VFX in a way that I’d never really had to work with— and understand what that studio system was like And it was a big studio process. And to understand that—short of being some of the most celebrated male auteurs—within that process, you are working as a group, and that is it is a ‘team’ film. And that is something that you have to know. I commend the people that can work in that environment. For me? I enjoy being the author of the film—from there, When They See Us, my latest film, Origin, and moving more into TV, where I am the primary and final voice became my preference. But I would not have known that had I not had that experience on Wrinkle.”
Will Ava DuVernay’s New Gods Happen?
One studio project DuVernay was previously attached to is New Gods, a live-action movie that would have chronicled the epic space opera of Jack Kirby’s DC creations. The movie was scrapped, alongside the Aquaman spinoff The Trench, in 2021.
“I feel like I have this genius, Jack Kirby, who created this [series] and this genius Ava DuVernay,” Tom King, who was co-writing the film with DuVernay, previously explained in an interview. “I see them as parallel figures, both taking their uniquely American backgrounds and using them to push American art forward into places it’s never been before. I feel like it’s job to bring those two geniuses to together and to make it work.”
What Is Ava DuVernay’s New Movie?
DuVernay’s next film is the forthcoming Origin, which is led by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and Jon Bernthal. Origin is inspired by the life and work of Pulitzer Prize winning author Isabel Wilkerson (played by Ellis-Taylor in the film). The story follows Wilkerson’s life as she sets out on a path of investigation and discovery following a personal tragedy to write her book, Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents.
In addition to Ellis-Taylor and Bernthal, Origin also stars Niecy Nash-Betts, Vera Farmiga, Audra McDonald, Nick Offerman, Blair Underwood, Finn Wittrock, Jasmine Cephas-Hones, and Connie Nielsen.
What do you think of Ava DuVernay’s new comments about working on A Wrinkle in Time? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
