Disney/Lucasfilm To Give Us CHILDREN OF BLOOD AND BONE

Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone is a project you don’t have to love in order to really admire. A young-adult epic fantasy based on West African mythology instead of medieval Europe for the 473th time? Sure, why not. I feel like people have been clamoring for this sort of thing for years, so it’s nice that in the post-Black Panther age, studios are more open to giving these stories the support they need.

Which is exactly what Disney and Lucasfilm are doing by hiring writer Kay Oyegun keeping director Rick Famuyiwa to make the film adaption of Children of Blood and Bone. This production started over at Fox 2000, but with the tidal wave of cancellations that have followed the Disney-Fox acquisition, it was reasonable to assume that CBB would be shelved indefinitely. This apparently isn’t the case at all, as Lucasfilm has become so taken with the project that they’re making it their first non-Star Wars, non-Indy production under Disney. Oyegun is writing a new script based on the novel, while Famuyiwa is still attached to direct (after being hired during the Fox period).

I guess the simplest way to sell Children of Blood and Bone is as Avatar: The Last Airbender but with more African mythology influence than Asian martial arts tropes. With the Fantastic Beasts movies floundering the way they are, I’m sure there’s an audience for CBB that’s currently waiting to be grabbed by the lapels, so good on Lucasfilm for seeing that opportunity. It’ll be interesting to see how this film progresses next to Sade, Famuyiwa’s other Disney project about an African princess.