Rachel Morrison, the first woman ever nominated for a Best Cinematography Oscar, is about to make her feature directorial debut. Morrison made waves with her work as a DP on films likeDopeandFruitvale Stationbefore landing an Oscar nomination for her work onDee Rees’ underrated 2017 Netflix dramaMudbound. She subsequently reteamed withRyan Cooglerto shoot Marvel’s excellentBlack Panther(which, by no coincidence, is the best-shot Marvel movie to date) and now she’s looking to direct her first feature film.
PerVariety, Morrison will helmFlint Strongfor Universal Pictures, which boasts a screenplay by Oscar-winningMoonlightandIf Beale Street Could TalkfilmmakerBarry Jenkins. The film is based on the 2015 boxing documentaryT-REXand follows a 17-year-old Flint, Michigan native who became the first woman in history to win an Olympic gold medal in boxing at the 2012 London Olympics.
Jenkins wrote the screenplay with an eye to direct, but eventually stepped back to a producer role as he’s now gearing up to helm the Amazon TV series adaptationThe Underground Railroad. Universal then subsequently signed Morrison to direct, withMichael De Luca,Elishia Holmes, and Jenkins producing.
This won’t be Morrison’s first time directing, as she previously helmed episodes of the TV showsQuantincoandAmerican Crime, as well as the pilot for the Starz seriesHightown. As a cinematographer, Morrison most recently wrapped the civil rights dramaAgainst All Enemies, and when I spoke to her in 2017 forMudbound, she spoke a bit about moving into directing whilemaintaining her love for being a DP:
“For me I just like new challenges. Directing came up kind of out of the blue to the same extent thatBlack Panthercame out of the blue… I was very fortunate that I was pulled out of nowhere to go and direct some television for [John Ridley], and for me at the time it was just exciting to try something different. I was shooting all sorts of smaller indie movies, I wasn’t getting calls from big studios at the time—not that studios are the be-all, end-all, but that was the clear point of growth for me so I just felt like I was putting out the same fires, and I got the chance to direct something different. Now I’ve been able to put out some new fires by doing bigger movies, by doing period movies, by doing something a little bit different. I definitely think I’ll direct again. I love shooting so that’s something I never wanna give up entirely. I think there’s this assumption that everybody would rather be a director, and I don’t know that that’s the case for me so we’ll see.”
And now Morrison’s about to direct a boxing movie for Universal Pictures, with a script by an Oscar-winning screenwriter. I can’t wait to see what she does with this, and I’ll be very curious to see if she pulls aSteven Soderberghand serves as her own DP.
