Nia DaCosta to direct screen adaptation of Ta-Nehisi Coates' novel The Water Dancer

MGM Studios has roped in filmmaker Nia DaCosta to direct the screen adaptation of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ 2019 debut novel The Water Dancer. Coates has also penned the screenplay based on his novel. The author-journalist is also set to bankroll the project under his banner Maceo-Lyn along with Brad Pitt’s Plan B, and Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films.      

The story follows Young Hiram Walker, who is born into bondage, loses his mother as a child and eventually 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,” reads the official synopsis.  

DaCosta is in post-production on the much-anticipated superhero film The Marvels, which is due for a theatrical release next year in 2023. The Water Dancer marks her second collaboration with Plan B.

The filmmaker, along with Plan B, is also in development on the feature Wrong Answer, based on Rachel Aviv's New Yorker story of the same name. Coates is adapting the story for the screen. Black Panther director Ryan Coogler is attached to direct the feature which has Michael B Jordan playing the principal role.