Oprah Winfrey will star in Ava DuVernay’s forthcoming fantasy adventure A Wrinkle in Time.
The Oscar-nominated actor and media mogul previously appeared in DuVernay’s drama Selma, about Martin Luther King, and the pair are collaborating on a new TV show, Queen Sugar.
A Wrinkle in Time, which has been in development at Disney for six years, is an adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s 1963 novel about a girl’s search for her scientist father in a mysterious fifth dimension. Frozen screenwriter and co-director Jennifer Lee will provide the script.
Winfrey will play Mrs Which, a witch who helps the central character. Other roles are yet to be cast, but Amy Adams and Kevin Hart are rumoured to be in talks to co-star.
The project will be DuVernay’s first feature-length narrative film since her Oscar-nominated civil rights biopic in 2014. Her documentary The 13th, about how the legacy of slavery affects contemporary US society, was recently selected to open the New York film festival this autumn.
Winfrey has recently been seen in the TV drama Greenleaf, and will next take on the lead role in the HBO movie The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, alongside Rose Byrne.
