‘Children of Blood & Bone’ Author Tomi Adeyemi “Will Not Watch” Film Adaptation: “It’s Been Painful”

But she will collect the paycheck

Apparently this book is heavily about colourism and the actress cast for a dark skinned role is light skinned. Might have been one of the factors contributing to this. 

A few things:

– This is how important it is to make sure you have a say, as an author, in who is cast when that is essential to the story (not blaming the author, just wonder what went wrong when she sold the story to be adapted into film, was she ill advised? Dus she approve and then change her mind?)
– Don’t blame the actor for decisions that were made by the producer, sounds like they could have been more considerate and careful with the source material. I seriously wonder what went down when they decided to adapt this book, that clearly has a lot of parallels with our world that are at the heart of the story and then decide to ignore that (according to the critics online of course, I can’t find what the casting process entailed)
– It feels very very wrong that Amandla Stenberg is suddenly at the center of this controversy. As stated, she has experienced a lot of racism since the beginning of her carreer and now she is being chastised for this, while she has previously explained what her process was of auditioning for this role:
https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/a/jaelaniturnerwilliams/amandla-stenberg-on-painful-children-of-blood-and-bone-colorism-allegations

Curious about what happened with Amandla Sternberg that caused Tomi to block her. if I remember correctly Amandla made a tiktok stating that Toni wanted her in the role…

I also find it odd that Tomi would distance herself after co writing the script and her heavy involvement with the film’s production. Didn’t she say her separation from Disney/Lucas Film was because of them refusing to let her co write?

Either way, it feels like paramount is setting up the film for failure with that January 15th release date.

I don’t love that she threw another woman under the bus publicly here. She’s allowed to feel how she feels about the casting but she must know that this will implicitly give permission to weirdos who want to bombard that actress with abuse.

It’s disappointing when discussions about adaptation choices turn into personal attacks on actors instead of focusing on the people who approved those choices.

After the Eragon and Lightning thief fiascos, I tend to take the author’s side in these things initially.

Hollywood has been known to ignore dark skinned black women in favor of lighter/biracial-looking ones. “The author herself wants this specific actress” could have been a narrative enforced on the Adeyemi and everyone else for damage control.

Anyone working in Hollywood knows you dont talk about in house business outside

this makes her seem like a mean girl

she publicly defended Amandla’s casting before

and then sends her a text telling her never to mention her and then blocks her

If I am a studio exec , this would soar me off adapting the rest of her books or working with her since she co wrote the script

she is deliberartely undermining the future of the project and millions attached to that project by fueling a public scandal which had already somewhat subsided

people who saw a clip of the movie at Cinemacon said it looked amazing

Amandla isnt a unknown actress , she knew what she looked like when she was cast

supported and defended the casting publicly

and now wants to be a victim

all she had to say is Im not allowed to say anything about the film yet

Ive also seen a few readers complain the Children of Blood and Bone books

get worse as they go along and arent really original either

so the delusion she is a great writer has worn off with a lot of them

she also hasnt even seem the film yet so this comes across like diva behavior of a child who didnt get all her demands met and is ungrateful

if it sucks she could chyme in them

if it ends up being good she will be seen as a problem

she needs to take a playbook from Sue Nyathis the author of the Polygamist

super quiet until the show comes out and hits and she is suddenly everywhere promoting her books

If the film adaptation sucks she co wrote the script so she has blame in that