'Frozen' Director Jennifer Lee To Adapt 'A Wrinkle In Time'

By Angie HanAug. 5, 2014 9:00 am EST

Another childhood classic is making its way to the big screen. Frozen co-director Jennifer Lee is set to adapt A Wrinkle in Time, the 1962 novel by Madeleine L'Engle. It's a big step forward for the Disney project, which has been in development since 2010. Hit the jump for more details.

In addition to Frozen, which she co-directed and co-wrote, Lee's credits include the screenplay for Disney's Wreck-It Ralph. She takes over A Wrinkle in Time from Jeff Stockwell (Bridge to Terabithia), who wrote the first draft.

James Whitaker and Catherine Hand are producing. No director has been announced as of yet. A Wrinkle in Time was previously adapted into a TV movie in 2003, which Hand also produced. However, the new version will be the first time the tale has been adapted as a theatrical feature.

Should Disney's A Wrinkle in Time score at the box office, it does have franchise potential. L'Engle's book is the first in a series of five, though the others aren't direct sequels per se.

Here's a summary of L'Engle's novel, via Amazon:

It was a dark and stormy night; Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and her mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger.

"Wild nights are my glory," the unearthly stranger told them. "I just got caught in a downdraft and blown off course. Let me sit down for a moment, and then I'll be on my way. Speaking of ways, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract."

A tesseract (in case the reader doesn't know) is a wrinkle in time. To tell more would rob the reader of the enjoyment of Miss L'Engle's unusual book. A Wrinkle in Time, winner of the Newbery Medal in 1963, is the story of the adventures in space and time of Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O'Keefe (athlete, student, and one of the most popular boys in high school). They are in search of Meg's father, a scientist who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government on the tesseract problem.