It seems Wanuri Kahiu’s career in Hollywood is not about to slow down anytime soon.
The award-winning Kenyan filmmaker has landed yet another major deal to direct another Hollywood film – an adaptation of the upcoming debut young adult novel The Black Kids, under her management company The Gotham Group.
According to Deadline, The Black Kids is a coming-of-age story of a wealthy African-American teenager whose family gets caught in the vortex of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
The Black Kids is not the first Hollywood project that Wanuri has been tied to since the release of her controversial and critically-acclaimed lesbian film, Rafiki, which despite its ban in Kenya by the Kenya Film Commission Board (KFCB), continues to open more doors for her.
In March 2019, it was announced that Wanuri would direct a film adaptation of another YA novel, The Thing About Jellyfish at Universal, starring Millie Bobby Brown.
PRESTIGIOUS EVENTS
Barely two weeks later, Wanuri and Nigerian-American Africanfuturism author Nnedi Okorafor inked another deal to co-write Wild Seed, a drama series adaptation of Octavia Butler’s novel for Viola Davis’ JuVee Productions and Amazon Studios.
In a tweet shared at the beginning of 2020, Okorafor confirmed that the process of writing the pilot for the series is already underway.
Hopefully, this will answer all the questions:
Yes, @wanuri & I are writing the pilot for the Octavia Butler WILD SEED TV series (Amazon Studios). Yes, the WHO FEARS DEATH HBO TV series is still developing. And yes, there is another (no, I will not explain what I mean by this).— Nnedi Okorafor, PhD (@Nnedi) January 7, 2020
Wanuri is also connected to direct HBO’s pilot Shade to be produced by Oprah Winfrey.
Wanuri was featured in 2019 Time magazine’s 100 Next List, and also invited for talks at prestigious events around the world, including the recently concluded World Economic Forum in Davos where she challenged delegates to support women filmmakers by buying tickets.
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