Katie Stuart was still a teen when she was cast as Meg Murry in the old A Wrinkle in Time. Her prior experiences had been mostly limited to television work, and since then she has mostly featured in bit parts for small-screen works. For a big-screen adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time, though, we propose someone with a bit more oomph. Chloë Grace Moretz has an impressive number of credits to her name for her 17 years, including Kick-Ass, the role that shot her into the limelight, Hugo, Carrie, and the upcoming Laggies and If I Stay. She has already proven more than capable of carrying a feature, and we can totally imagine her chemistry with our choice to play her friend (and more-than-friend) Calvin O'Keefe.
Detached—absent, really—but brilliant, Dr. Murry is a silent presence throughout most of A Wrinkle in Time. He's the figure that drives the plot forward, but he doesn't appear in person until the end of the tale. It is his research on the tesseract that precipitates his disappearance and sparks his children's curiosity on the nature of space travel. James McAvoy, dashing in Atonement, comical in The Chronicles of Narnia, troubled in X-Men, has the ability to transform and assume whatever role he chooses. There's a lot to read between the lines with Dr. Murry, and we think McAvoy is best suited to the challenge of adding psychological depth to the character. Plus, wouldn't it be fun to see young Charles Xavier at the mercy of old Professor X?
Riding high on the success of this year's Boyhood, Ellar Coltrane is poised to be the next (successful) child-to-adult crossover star. At 19, he retains enough of his youthful look to play a convincing young high schooler as Calvin O'Keefe, Meg's friend and sometime love interest —two roles for which he's already proven himself as Boyhood's Mason.
You probably haven't seen him since he appeared as a two-year-old Aaron Littleton, Claire's son on Lost over five years ago. But between his big, intelligent eyes, mop of blond hair and baby face (he's still only nine) we can envision William Blanchette making a stellar Charles Wallace Murry, Meg's hyper-intelligent little brother. Charles Wallace didn't speak until age five, at which point he began spouting complete, perfectly-formed sentences in conversation with his family.
From that time when Captain Picard was kidnapped by the Borg on Star Trek to a turn on Broadway as the titular role in Shakespeare's Macbeth, Patrick Stewart is certainly well-acquainted with villainous roles. In A Wrinkle in Time, The Man with Red Eyes is the physical incarnation of IT, the amorphous embodiment of evil that is gradually taking over the universe, and who has kidnapped Meg and Charles Wallace's father Dr. Murry. There's something austere and eerie about a villain with an accent (we're looking at you, Anthony Hopkins) and the idea of Patrick Stewart with red eyes makes the character all the spookier.
Contemporary audiences for A Wrinkle in Time will probably best recognize Julie Walters as the portly, warm Mrs. Weasley in the Harry Potter films. She'd play a slightly more powerful mentoring role as Mrs Whatsit in the L'Engle film, the Murrys' new neighbor who turns out to be an immortal voyager through the galaxy. Walters also voiced the Witch in Brave, and her kindly voice and features—which have already graced so many children's films—are exactly what we picture for Mrs Whatsit.
