There is such a thing as a tesseract… Just ask Mrs. Whatsit.

Screenwriter Jeff Stockwell has been hired to adapt author Madeleine L’Engle’s classic time-travel headtrip, “A Wrinkle in Time,” for Cary Granat and his newly formed Bedrock Studios.

L’Engle’s 1962 Newbery Medal-winning science fiction novel concerns teenaged Meg Murry, her genius brother Charles Wallace and classmate Calvin O’Keefe as they launch an interplanetary mission to rescue Meg’s missing scientist father. They are counseled along the way by the mysterious trio, Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which.

The BBC made a film version of the young-adult novel, and Dimension Television produced a TV movie for ABC in 2004. Disney carried remake rights from that deal and is developing the new feature iteration with Bedrock, which had negotiated rights to the property from the L’Engle estate. Catherine Hand also is producing, and L’Engle’s granddaughter, Charlotte Voilkis, who runs the estate, is an executive producer.

Granat has a relationship with Disney from when his Walden Media produced such films for the studio as the “Chronicles of Narnia” series and “Bridge to Terabithia,” co-written by Stockwell. L’Engle wrote a handful of follow-up novels to “Wrinkle,” now called the Time Quintet, and Disney’s Rich Ross is looking for more franchise material in the mold of the record-breaking, female-driven success of Tim Burton’s 3D “Alice in Wonderland.”

The UTA-repped Stockwell has made something of a career out of tackling challenging children’s literature. He co-wrote the adaptation of Chris Fuhrman’s novel “The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys” for producer Jodie Foster and THINKFilm as well as the adaptation of Katherine Paterson’s “Bridge to Terabithia,” which Disney released in 2007.

He also has adaptations of the novels “Kiki’s Delivery Service” and “The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane” in development. Stockwell’s original screenplay “Our Wild Life” (formerly titled “Peaceable Kingdom”) is set up with Mandalay Pictures at New Line. Walter Salles (“The Motorcyle Diaries”) is set to direct.

Granat most recently produced “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” which grossed $231 million worldwide in 2008. Bedrock, which plans to develop and produce franchise films for $35 million and under, springs from the partnership between Granat Entertainment and Ed Jones’ Reel FX. It is developing the animated feature “Turkeys” and adaptations of the children’s books “Dinosaur Bob” and “Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.”