Something is up with 'A Wrinkle in Time' social reactions

The first screenings for Disney's A Wrinkle in Time took place on Tuesday, and the reaction has been – well, kind of absent. That isn't to say that reactions are particularly bad, but for the most part, critics and audiences have stayed silent.

First of all, a quick recap – before a film's wide release, distributors will host early screenings for VIPs, press, and sometimes members of the public. Following that, there are official embargo dates – one for social media reactions, one for official reviews. You can usually gauge a film's quality based on how many screenings there are, how far out they are from the release, and when the embargoes lift.

For example, Black Panther's social media embargo lifted over two weeks before its official release. Reactions were so vocal, so enthusiastically positive, that the film's smash-hit status seemed inevitable well beyond the confines of Film Twitter and entertainment journalists. (Though of course, there are cases where pre-release hype doesn't translate to box-office dollars.)

A Wrinkle in Time's social media embargo broke Wednesday and there have been startlingly few reactions. The review embargo is still a week away – a mere two days before the film's wide release, which doesn't bode well.

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The silence around A Wrinkle in Time suggests it's not exactly a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. Maybe that's not a surprise; Madeleine L'Engle's novel is a daunting adaptation to begin with. But there's no denying the cultural impact of a movie by Ava DuVernay – the rare black woman to helm a big-budget blockbuster – and a cast that includes Storm Reid, Oprah Winfrey, Mindy Kaling, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw.

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Ultimately, as ever, it's a movie. We've still got high hopes for this one, but people are going to love or leave it based on taste preferences, and that's just fine – as long as Hollywood doesn't use it as an excuse to not bank on diverse casts and creators in the future, not when their visibility and vision is still so important.

And, to be clear, the reactions thus far weren't uniformly negative.

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A Wrinkle in Time hits theaters March 9.