The real question for A Wrinkle in Time has never been what it means for the film industry if it’s a success, but what will happen if — or when — it’s not.

Disney Levi Miller, Deric McCabe, and Storm Reid in A Wrinkle in Time.

Hints that Disney did not expect A Wrinkle in Time to be a world-dominating hit started appearing a few weeks ago — signs and portents that were pored over by the journalists and industry observers following along online. Advanced screenings of the film seemed more selective and sparse than usual. The embargo, the time frame for running reviews that critics have to agree to in order to go to those screenings, was late, a day and a half before the movie started playing in theaters, which generally suggests that the studio did not expect those reviews to be glowing. Online reactions after the glitzy premiere screening struck some as muted — not negative (which would have been rare at a premiere) so much as absent, as if people were reluctant to share how they felt. But the most telling indications that Wrinkle was a risky release, rather than a guaranteed blockbuster, came from Ava DuVernay herself. The filmmaker responsible for Oscar nominees Selma and 13th had been pursued by Disney to adapt Madeleine L'Engle’s 1962 science-fiction novel for the big screen, reimagining the story's heroine, Meg Murry, as a biracial girl played by relative unknown Storm Reid. In interviews, DuVernay acknowledged the history she was making, but also referenced Hollywood's own history of taking risks on and giving multiple chances to certain white male directors, while tending to give women — especially women of color — one shot, presuming they're given a shot at all. While someone like Guy Ritchie has been able to go from having two sizable box office bombs in a row to getting hired to direct the live-action remake of Aladdin, women like Mimi Leder and Karyn Kusama were consigned to "movie jail" after their own flops, spending years trying to get follow-ups funded and their careers back on track.

Brad Barket / Getty Images Ava DuVernay at the official Academy screening of A Wrinkle in Time.

DuVernay is the first black woman to direct a live-action movie with a $100 million–plus budget, and she tends to talk about the opportunity as the kind that might very easily be denied to her in the future — and one that easily could have never come along at all. As someone who worked for years in marketing and PR before moving into filmmaking, she's seen the industry ebb and flow, and is clearly trying to carve out a place for herself in its shifting narrative. In February, she pointed out to the Washington Post that while she and Colin Trevorrow both had films at Sundance in 2012, he went on Jurassic World and then (though he's no longer attached) the next Star Wars movie. Until she was approached by Disney, DuVernay went "from that to Selma, and there is nothing else on the horizon? That didn’t feel good, and that had me in a depressed place." In March, she told the Associated Press, "I want to do as much as I can do when I can. It's not unreasonable, you know? Tomorrow they can say, 'No we don't want you to make movies anymore.'" She declared to the New York Times that she didn't care what anyone thought of the film she got to make: "I know it’s $100 million for the studio. They’ll be fine." They — Disney, one of the biggest corporate forces in entertainment — will of course be fine, but that was never really the issue here. If A Wrinkle in Time, an eccentric children's fantasy that's neither animated, a remake of an animated film, or part of an existing franchise, was a risk, then DuVernay was making sure to get it on the record that bouncing back from risks that don’t pan out has been a privilege allotted to a particular demographic. Beyond stating facts, she was, in effect, issuing a challenge: Is Hollywood ready to let a black woman direct a big movie that's not an incontestable hit without it crushing her career — or, at least, setting it back years? DuVernay's own television series Queen Sugar has made a point to hire a slate of directors made up entirely of women, many women of color, some of whom have gone for long stretches between features. In that Post profile, she runs through her own contingency plan in case studios stop greenlighting her projects — “If they won’t let me make films at a certain point, I can still make them indie. If I can’t make films, I’ll make TV. If I can’t make TV, I’ll do commercials. I’ll do the installation at the Smithsonian. I’ll do the Prada ad."

Is Hollywood ready to let a black woman direct a big movie that's not an incontestable hit without it crushing her career?

Atsushi Nishijima / Disney Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, and Oprah Winfrey in A Wrinkle in Time.