We could never use the hashtag #blackgirlmagic enough this year!
More melanin is coming to a small screen near you. Royal Woman and “Selma’ director Ava DuVernay, has cast 13 year-old Storm Reid to play the leading preteen heroine in her upcoming live-action movie, “A Wrinkle in Time”. The Disney film will be a adaption of a classic children’s fantasy book by Madeleine L’Engle. Reid will play the character of Meg Murray, a young girl who enlists the help of celestial beings to travel across space and time with her brother to find their missing scientist father. Reid made her acting debut in “12 Years A Slave”.
But what will make this movie so amazing is its colorful cast. Unlike the novel adaptation, the Murray’s will be a mixed-race family. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney is looking for a non-white actor to play Meg’s friend, Calvin.
The call for more diversity in Disney films is getting more demanding from the fans. A live-action film adaptation of Disney’s “Mulan” is also in the works. A online petition urging Disney to not “whitewash” it and cast a Asian actress to play the hero has been going around. So far it has received more than 90,000 signatures.
Hopefully Disney will listen and take some pointers from “A Whistle in Time” . Oprah Winfrey, Mindy Kaling and Reese Witherspoon will also be starring in the movie. Production starts later this year.
The film will make DuVernay the first African-American woman to direct a live-action movie with a budget of more than $100 million.
