How a stranger on a plane helped produce 'Selma'

Ava DuVernay, the writer/director behind civil-rights drama Selma, just won the Los Angeles Film Critics' new-generation award for her work on the film. (Our film critic, Claudia Puig, was very excited by that news.)

Clearly, DuVernay is getting critical acclaim for her recent movie. But it wasn't always her film. Before DuVernay signed on to direct, Stephen Frears was going to take on the project, and so were Paul Haggis, Michael Mann, Spike Lee and Lee Daniels. Here's how a stranger on a plane set off a series of events that helped DuVernay finally land the gig, according to Vulture:

• David Oyelowo, who plays Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma, sat next to a stranger on a plane in 2010


• That stranger was friends with a friend of DuVernay's producing partner for film Middle of Nowhere


• Oyelowo read the script for Middle of Nowhere and called DuVernay, saying he loved her script


• Oyelowo got a role in DuVernay's film Middle of Nowhere


• Meanwhile, Lee Daniels, who directed Oyelowo in The Butler, was working on Selma


• Daniels pulled out of Selma, but Oyelowo stayed onboard


• Oyelowo suggested DuVernay would be great to direct Selma


• DuVernay and the producers agreed she'd helm the project, after she rewrote the screenplay