Have you seen clips going around of what looks like a blend of Black Panther and The Woman King? Maybe you’ve seen some pictures of Black people with Targaryen white hair doing Avatar level magic and you’re confused? Then you've seen marketing and behind the scenes from the upcoming fantasy epic movie, Children of Blood and Bone. A trailer for the highly anticipated and highly discussed movie adaptation of the 2018 novel was recently released, but the book and its movie adaptation have been mired in discourse even before a movie was in the works.
Here’s everything you need to know about Children of Blood and Bone, the book, the behind the scenes drama, and what to expect from the movie.
First, what is Children of Blood and Bone? The 2018 novel was the debut of Nigerian-American author Tomi Adeyemi and was immediately a bestseller. The novel is set in a fictional and fantastical pre-colonial Nigeria, specifically the kingdom of Orisha, inhabited by two classes of people - the white haired, magic wielding maji and the non-magical kosidán. 11 years before the events of the novel, the king of Orisha eradicated magic from the land, leading to maji becoming an oppressed class. The story follows a young girl named Zelie on a quest to restore magic to Orisha, alongside her brother, Tzain, and the princess of Orisha, Amari while her brother, Prince Inan, tries to stop them.
Children of Blood and Bone was an attention grabber even before it was published, and the movie rights were sold to American film production company, Fox 2000, a year before the book was released. So, of course, once the novel was published it received a very aggressive marketing campaign and shot to the top of bestseller lists. While the book received a lot of critical acclaim, there was a small but loud group of readers who voiced criticism of the story. Adeyemi’s world of Orisha was inspired by West African and Yoruba mythology, but some people did not enjoy how she played with the mythology and spotted some inaccuracies in her story. Critics claimed that Adeyemi sanitised African mythology and culture to make it palatable to white audiences. Despite these critiques, the book continued to do well and, eventually, concrete plans for the movie adaptation began to take shape but this is when the next series of controversies unfolded.
The movie sat in development hell for a few years, getting passed from studio to studio with no real explanations to the public. The rights for the movie were initially acquired by Fox 2000 in 2017, and Nigerian-American filmmaker and television director Rick Famuyiwa, was announced as director. However, after Disney acquired Fox in 2019, the rights were transferred to Lucasfilm, best known for creating classics like Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Once again, announcements were made, with Nigerian born American writer, producer, and director Kay Oyegun announced as the scriptwriter in August 2019. Things looked good for a while, but a report from The Hollywood Reporter revealed that author Tomi Adeyemi felt like the adaptation was coming along too slowly and requested to write the script herself instead. Lucasfilm denied this request and let the rights to the adaptation lapse so they could focus on their existing intellectual properties which were more popular. A few months later, Paramount Pictures announced that they had acquired the rights and that Adeyemi would be serving as not only scriptwriter but also executive producer, with Gina Prince-Bythewood , the American film director and screenwriter who directed The Woman King, as the director and co-scriptwriter. Everything seemed to be going great now, but another wave of controversy was approaching.
The entire production of Children of Blood and Bone received massive backlash when the cast of the movie was announced in January 2025. The backlash came from many angles, but the primary recipient was American actress Amandla Stenberg, who was cast as Princess Amari. In the novel, Amari is described as dark skinned and is subjected to many colourist statements from her mother, the Queen, who will be played by Regina King. With this in mind, audiences were baffled by the choice to cast a light-skinned, biracial actress in the role, noting how the very colourism that the book describes was being displayed by the production. Aside from the issues with Amandla, audiences, and Nigerian audiences in particular, were upset at how the cast was made up of British, American and even South African talents but no Nigerians. While many of the British and American cast members have Nigerian ancestry, such as Damson Idris, Cynthia Erivo, and Chiwetel Ejiofor, audiences were still disappointed that native Nigerian talent wasn’t cast. Other major roles went to Americans Viola Davis and Regina King, American-born British actor Tosin Cole, and British actors of West African descent Idris Elba and Zackary Momoh.
Discussions around Westerners using ‘African accents’ in movies arose, and Adeyemi was questioned about why there was no homegrown,Nigerian talent in the main cast. In response , Adeyemi announced that the open casting call that had been put out months prior in November 2024 would yield some Nigerian talent. This placated audiences for a while but ultimately was not satisfying to most. The only confirmed homegrown Nigerian talent in the cast are Afro-pop star Ayra Starr, teen actress Pamilerin Ayodeji and model and actor Shamz Garuba, all of whom seem to be in very minor,background roles. On the other hand, Thuso Mbedo, who plays the protagonist Zelie, is South African.
As is often the case with casting backlash, the audience’s displeasure did not slow the production down, and Adeyemi stood behind her studio and cast. Things were calm for months and as the film went into production and filming, Adeyemi would frequently post behind the scenes insights from the set, and things seemed to be going well in her world of Orisha. But there was one final wave of controversy to be had, and this one seems to be the most shocking.
A few months ago, fans noticed that Adeyemi had stopped making posts promoting the movie. They noted how she had stopped sharing from behind the scenes, and no longer seemed to be talking about the movie at all. Finally, one fan asked her directly if there was any reason for her silence. Adeyemi responded with a TikTok in early July that left audiences with many more questions than we expected, with receipts including screenshots of conversations and allegations of mistreatment on set. The now deleted video was captioned, “why don’t you post about the adaptation of your first film adaptation anymore?” The video then went on to show screenshots of a private broadcast channel where she told her fans that, if they wanted to support her they should buy her books as she would no longer be supporting the movie and did not plan on watching it. The Tiktok also included a screenshot of her DMs with Amandla Stenberg where she told the actress, “Do not ever use my name in an interview or video again. Do not text me. Do not call me.”, followed by her blocking Stenberg. None of this was explained, but this wouldn’t be the end of Adeyemi’s TikTok revelations.
Paramount and the production, cast and crew of the movie did not respond to Tomi's post and proceeded with business as usual, dropping a first look for the movie and eventually an official trailer. Unfortunately, this also received some backlash. The first look featured images of the cast in character, wearing costumes and interacting with the world of Orisha. The visuals for the movie are undeniably stunning, from the set design to the costumes but this didn’t stop audiences from expressing displeasure at the apparent lack of truly African design on display. Audiences pointed out how the costumes didn’t seem to have any ties to Nigerian or Yoruba culture and instead seemed to just be a generic ‘African’ design that Western media uses when setting movies anywhere in Africa. This became more apparent when the trailer was released and we heard the characters speak and saw more of the costuming. While many people have praised the hard work of the crew when it comes to the set design and VFX, fans can’t help but be disappointed at how disconnected from Yoruba culture it looks. Fans also have a lot of ire towards director Gina Prince-Bythewood, who has repeatedly said in the press in recent weeks that the movie is important to the Black diaspora, instead of aimed at highlighting specific cultural importance, saying to Essence magazine that, “this film is a true celebration of the Black diaspora from the story to the casting to the world building designs, costume, action, choreography, music, all of it.”
In a bout of positive news, Prince-Bythewood also announced that Nigerian musician and Grammy winner Tems will serve as the Executive Music Producer for the movie where she would be curating the soundtrack, as well as contributing three new original songs, while fellow Afrobeats star Burna Boy will serve as Executive Music Consultant. Of course, as seems to be par for the course with this movie, people online couldn’t help but wonder why the movie trailer didn’t feature a Tems song, or a Nigerian song at all and instead was set to an Afrobeats remix of Beyonce’s “Energy”.
The final nail in the coffin in the relationship between Adeyemi and the Paramount production came on July 29 when Adeyemi posted another video on her TikTok claiming it to be the final time she addressed the circumstances around this movie. The video was incredibly vague, but Adeyemi claimed that she left the film set ‘hyperventilating and sobbing’, which she claims was witnessed by multiple people. She does not share exactly what happened on set, but she claimed that the production ‘at the highest level’ is aware of what she went through and offered no help, and rather ‘antagonized’ her. She also claimed that after leaving the set, she experienced ‘severe somatic pain and so many panic attacks’ which have led to her deciding that she will never watch the film. She said that making the film was ‘the worst thing she has ever had to live through’ and she no longer wishes to speak about it.
Adeyemi is currently marketing her most recent book, a dark academia novel titled The Siren, which is expected to be released in September, while Children of Blood and Bone will be released in theatres on January 15, 2027. Audiences remain divided and confused about what happened on set, whether they will be seeing the movie, and whether they side with Adeyemi or not. Despite all the ups and downs, many people anticipate the movie to be a box office success. As a Black-led, epic fantasy, Children of Blood and Bone is an undeniably big deal for the culture. We will just have to wait and see.
