The Academy Award-winning writer/director will write the film adaptation of the classic children's time-travel novel.
- Aug 6, 2014
AceShowbiz - Jennifer Lee, "Frozen (2013)" writer and co-director, is set to adapt 1962's novel "A Wrinkle in Time" as a feature film for Disney. Lee will write the big screen adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's acclaimed young adult science-fantasy classic.
The story follows a brilliant but problematic young girl whose father, a genius government scientist, disappeared after working on a mysterious project called a tesseract. Tesseract is explained as a fifth-dimensional phenomenon similar to folding the fabric of space and time.
The teenager, her brother and her love interest use the tesseract to travel through space and time to find the missing father. The three kids are guided by three eccentric women throughout the journey where they learn that the earth is under attack from an evil force wishing to cover the planet with darkness.
According to Variety, "A Wrinkle in Time" was one of Lee's favorite novels when she was a child. Her take on the material which emphasizes a strong female-driven narrative impresses Disney's executives. The project approaches the science fiction and other world-building elements of the book in a creative manner.
Disney originally announced the project in 2010 with Jeff Stockwell, who wrote "Bridge to Terabithia", as the screenwriter. The New Yorker suggested in 2010 that an adaptation of the book had been stalled because of the novel's frequent appearance on banned book lists. Some religious groups requested the fantasy novel to be banned due to its offensive language. Many publishers rejected L'Engle's manuscript before Farrar, Straus and Giroux eventually published it.
Catherine Hand, who previously produced the television adaptation of the novel in 2003, is set to co-produce the film with James Whitaker. No director has been announced yet.
