Award-winning filmmaker Ava DuVernay (“Selma”) will team with Oprah Winfrey to create a new original drama series for OWN, inspired by the novel “Queen Sugar,” with DuVernay as writer, director and executive producer.
She may have been passed over for an Oscar nomination, but DuVernay now has a berth for long-form narrative on television.
Ava DuVernay tweeted: “Been wanting to move like Soloway, Fincher, Soderbergh, Fukanaga, McQueen. Take your time to tell a story. Hours. Freedom. Thanks, @Oprah.”
DuVernay was referring to other honored filmmakers moving to TV: the creators of “Transparent” (Jill Soloway), “House of Cards” (David Fincher), “The Knick” (Steven Soderbergh), “True Detective” (Cary Fukunaga), and an as-yet untitled drama for HBO (Steve McQueen).
Oprah will have a recurring role in the series, the first time she’s acted in a project for OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network).
The first-time novel “Queen Sugar” by Natalie Baszile, chronicles a contemporary woman who leaves her upscale Los Angeles lifestyle behind to claim an inheritance from her recently departed father — an 800-acre sugar cane farm in the heart of Louisiana.
