Having enjoyed success with her first big studio film in Candyman and following that up with the gigantic, incoming The Marvels, director Nia DaCosta is looking to return to slightly smaller filmmaking with an adaptation of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ acclaimed 2019 debut novel The Water Dancer.
MGM is backing the movie alongside Oprah Winfrey, who was an early champion via her Oprah's Book Club selections.
Coates’ New York Times bestseller follows Young Hiram Walker, who was born into bondage. As a child, he loses his mother and over time loses all memory of her. Now a young man, Hiram almost drowns when he crashes a carriage into a river, but is saved from the depths by a mysterious power he never realized he had and struggles to understand.
The writer will adapt his own work for the screen, while Brad Pitt's Plan B company is also aboard.
As for The Marvels, the Captain Marvel sequel is due out in February next year.