What Is Going on With ‘Children of Blood and Bone’?

The long-awaited adaptation of Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone has hit a surprising snag before it even hits theaters. A TikTok of Adeyemi’s went viral over the weekend, in which she reveals that she is distancing herself from the upcoming movie version of her 2018 fantasy novel. Adeyemi co-wrote the film’s script alongside its director, The Old Guard and Professor Marsden and the Wonder Women‘s Gina Prince-Bythewood.

Captioned “For everyone’s who’s been asking – i’m answering this question once and for all,” the video contained screenshots of several texts Adeyemi sent in relation to the film. The first is a series of messages sent to her official Instagram fan group, “The Tominators.” Telling her fans, “There is a reason I will not post anything about the adaptation of my work. That’s all,” Adeyemi goes on to say “from this point on, if you want to support me, you can purchase any edition of the [book] trilogy at a local independent children’s bookstore.”

The second is a pair of texts between Adeyemi and actor Amandla Stenberg, who stars in the Children of Blood and Bone movie as Princess Amari. Stenberg’s message, in part, says “my only hope was to reconnect as human beings,” before Adeyemi responded on February 28, 2025 with “Do not ever use my name in an interview or video again. Do not text me. Do not call me.” Adeyemi then blocked Stenberg’s number on her phone.

And finally, there is another series of messages sent to the Instagram group, reading “And lastly since someone asked — I have not seen the film, and I will not watch it… It’s been painful holding this back from you all… And I’m sorry if any of you thought I didn’t care. I will always care about US. More than any glitter.”

In a comment to her TikTok, Adeyemi clarified that she’s not calling on fans to boycott the movie, but rather explaining why she’s distancing herself from the project in general. As she put it: “I do not mind anyone going to watch the film. I wrote this for us. I fought for us. I’m just laying down my sword and officially separating my name because I can’t keep being hurt and attacked behind the scenes.”

So, What Happened?

Given the headline-grabbing nature of Adeyemi’s post, it’s safe to assume that more information will come to light between now and the January 2027 release date for the Children of Blood and Bone movie. But in the meantime, it is bringing up the colorism controversy that surrounded the film’s casting in early 2025.

For the uninitiated, Children of Blood and Bone is set in the fictional kingdom of Orïsha, and explores the class warfare between the magic-practicing divîners and the non-magical kosidán. The story, which has an all-black cast and is heavily influenced by Western African mythology, follows protagonist Zélie Adebola as she works to restore magic to the land.

At the time, fans had criticized the casting of Stenberg — as well as The Woman King‘s Thuso Mbedu as Zélie months prior — for not matching the darker-skinned descriptions of their characters in the book. On February 13th of that year, Stenberg posted an eight-minute-long TikTok addressing the controversy (as well as a similar controversy surrounding her casting in the adaptation of The Hate U Give) in which she brought up her first meeting with Adeyemi.

“I had the opportunity to meet Tomi, the novelist, for the first time,” Stenberg explained in the video, which has since been deleted. “She goes, ‘Amandla, I want you to know that when you were a little girl and were cast as Rue in The Hunger Games, and you had these racist remarks thrown at you because people said that Rue’s death wouldn’t be as sad because you’re a Black girl — that inspired me to write this series, so that Black girls like you and Black girls of all shades could have a story written about them.’ We just started crying, and I said to myself, ‘God wants me here!'”

Given the timeline of events, that video could be the reason why Adeyemi told Stenberg not to “ever use my name in an interview or video again” just a matter of weeks later. It is unclear what else, beyond that, has led Adeyemi to feel “hurt and attacked behind the scenes.”

Why Has a Children of Blood and Bone Movie Taken So Long?

This comes after Children of Blood and Bone has already had a long and often-arduous journey of even getting to the screen. The novel had a seven-figure adaptation deal before it was even officially published, ultimately landing at Fox 2000 Pictures with Dope‘s Rick Famuyiwa set to direct by 2019. Once 21st Century Fox was acquired by The Walt Disney Company, with Fox 2000 shuttering as a result, the film rights then transferred over to a co-production between Lucasfilm and 20th Century Studios.

The film would have been Lucasfilm’s first original live-action project in decades (after primarily focusing on its own existing IP like Star Wars and Indiana Jones) and was even featured in the studio’s carousel of titles on Disney+ Day in December of 2020. Updates were slim until early 2022, when it was suddenly announced that Lucasfilm’s rights to Children of Blood and Bone had lapsed altogether, and that Paramount Pictures had landed the rights. Reporting at the time indicated that Lucasfilm had not accomodated Adeyemi’s request to help with the screenplay, and that the studio was shifting its focus towards its existing IP anyway.

The cast of the Children of Blood and Bone movie also includes Damson Idris, Tosin Cole, Cynthia Erivo, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Lashana Lynch, Idris Elba, and Viola Davis. The film is currently scheduled to be released exclusively in theaters on Friday, January 15, 2027.

(featured image: Marla Aufmuth)

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