UPDATE: 3 hours after my initial post on news that DuVernay was circulating the project, comes news, courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter, that Lupita Nyong’o is “in negotiations” to star in the sci-fi film “Intelligent Life," which Ava would direct from a script by penned by Colin Trevorrow ("Jurassic World") and his collaborator Derek Connolly, which tells a story about a UN worker in a department designed to represent mankind if there was ever contact with aliens, who falls for a mystery woman who turns out to be an alien. I assume Ms. Nyong’o is "in negotiations" to play the mystery woman in the logline. This is shaping up to be a coup, and I certainly hope deals are worked out favorably on all sides, and this gets fast-tracked!
It’s one of 2 projects that DuVernay is circling – the other being a Disney adaptation of a fantasy novel. Details in my initial post below…
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In Reelblack’s videotaped chat with Ava DuVernay published on this blog a couple of weeks ago, while she was at the Sundance Film Festival, she mentioned that, as soon as she’s done with "Queen Sugar" for Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Network, she would move onto her next feature, which, based on what she said in the video, seemed like something she already had in hand, and was ready to get rolling on (although she didn’t spill any details, of course). Some of us began speculating on what it could be – a personal, smaller, independently-financed project, like "Middle of Nowhere," or a studio feature?
Who knows!
But one thing we do know, and can start getting excited about, is that, according to a Deadline exclusive, among the many films that I’m sure she’s being courted to helm, here are 2 that have been made public: one at Disney – an adaptation of "A Wrinkle In Time," a science/fantasy novel by Madeleine L’Engle, first published in 1963, which revolves around a young girl whose father, a government scientist, has gone missing after working on a mysterious project called a tesseract; and second, Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment wants her for a sci-fi thriller titled "Intelligent Life," which she would direct from a script by Colin Trevorrow ("Jurassic World") and his collaborator Derek Connolly. Apparently, Trevorrow and Amblin really want her for this – a story about a UN worker in a department designed to represent mankind if there was ever contact with aliens, who falls for a mystery woman who turns out to be an alien.
Of course, the news is that both Disney and Amblin want her for each project, it all depends on whether Ms DuVernay is interested in either, or if she has something else entirely in the works that she’d prefer to tackle. So, no we wait…
But this is obviously great news, and should excite!
