I previously worked with Mira Nair on The Reluctant Fundamentalist and we got to know each other pretty well in that process because it took a few years. How did you get involved with Queen of Katwe? Lupita Nyong’o as Nakku Harriet and Madina Nalwanga as Phiona Mutesi in Queen of Katwe. Wheeler spoke to Creative Screenwriting about meeting the real-life inspirations for the characters in his screenplay, how his work as a mentor for the Sundance Institute has taken his writing to new territory, and what he is looking forward to seeing in the Ghost in the Shell live-action film. In addition to his work on Queen of Katwe, Wheeler was also involved in the early stages of adapting the screenplay for the live-action version of Ghost in the Shell. Wheeler followed that with writing the screenplays for 2006’s The Hoax, 2012’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and writing for television, including several episodes of Ray Donovan. His script The Prime Gig was selected for the 1998 Screenwriters Lab and was released in the United States in 2001, with Vince Vaughan starring. Wheeler credits much of the success of his career to his involvement with the Sundance Institute early in that career. Nair brought on screenwriter William Wheeler, with whom she worked with on the 2012 political thriller The Reluctant Fundamentalist.
To direct, Disney turned to Indian filmmaker Mira Nair. The material came to Disney through its subsidiary ESPN, which published the book, and was championed by Disney executive Tendo Nagenda, who is of Ugandan descent. Yet it also continues the tradition of Disney’s “based on a true story” underdog sports movies like Remember the Titans (2000), The Rookie (2002), Miracle (2004), The Greatest Game Ever Played (2005), Invincible (2006), and Million Dollar Arm (2014). Based on the 2012 book The Queen of Katwe: A Story of Life, Chess, and One Extraordinary Girl’s Dream of Becoming a Grandmaster by sportswriter Tim Crothers, Queen of Katwe charts new ground for Disney because of the story’s African origins.
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