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*Ava DuVernay gifted her hometown of Compton with the very first public screening of “A Wrinkle in Time,” which arrives in theaters later this week.
As DuVernay noted on her Twitter account, she specifically requested that the first public screening of her $100 fantasy feature be held in Compton. But since there are no movie theaters in the city, Disney set up the screening at a community center, converting it into a pop-up theater.
DuVernay took to Instagram to share photos from the screening, including a thank you to Compton’s mayor, Aja Brown and the city for “welcoming [her] home so warmly.”
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The film is based on the classic 1962 children’s novel by Madeleine L’Engle, which centers on a tween girl, Meg (Storm Reid) who searches the universe of her missing father, a physicist (Chris Pine). On her epic journey, she’s aided by three spirits, played by Oprah Winfrey, Mindy Kaling, and Reese Witherspoon.
The story has long been considered to be “unadaptable,” and as DuVernay told the Los Angeles Daily News, the same criticism was shared with her by her friends.
From the Daily News:
“People who really loved me and are looking out for me told me, Ava, this book is unadaptable, this might not be the thing that’s next,” she recalled. “But when Disney came to me and said, ‘You can take “A Wrinkle in Time,” which we’ve been trying to crack for a while, and you can run with it,’ I said I wanted to make it look like this, I wanted people of color to inhabit different roles, I wanted to move it from Meg coming from a sleepy Connecticut town to living in South L.A. . . . and they were game.”
DuVernay also told the Daily News that even though it’s a fantasy film, the theme is similar to her Oscar-nominated movie “Selma.”
“Even though it sounds ridiculous, Dr. King’s story is not much different from the stuff I’m exploring in 13th or Middle of Nowhere or Wrinkle in Time,” DuVernay said. “It’s about the way we treat each other and how we want to be in this world.”
“A Wrinkle In Time” opens nationwide on March 9.
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