As much as anything, Doug Atchison was looking to raise the bar with "Akeelah and the Bee."

The writer and director of the film, Atchison wanted not only a higher-grade film for children than most major releases, he wanted the message within to address higher expectations.

"The primary notion is that taking a risk can sometimes be a good thing," Atchison said while visiting San Diego to promote the film recently. "Low expectations can be crushing, especially for a child. So in this story Akeelah takes a risk and does something that scares her, even though she realizes that this risk is the right thing to do."

In "Akeelah and the Bee," that risk involves entering a series of challenging spelling bees. The 11-year-old daughter of a widowed mother in inner-city Los Angeles, Akeelah is not considered an obvious candidate for contending in a national spelling bee. She shows a natural, superior talent for spelling, though, and soon finds herself in the midst of that competition.

"I've already seen the effect the film has on young people, especially girls," Atchison said. "We were at the Pan-American Film Festival in Los Angeles, and one girl told me, 'This movie makes me feel like I can do anything I want.' It shows that even if you don't have the resources, you can use your own will to change things."

"Akeelah and the Bee" is in stark contrast to the multitude of films for children that rely on special effects, intense action or dumbed-down comedy. With box-office results already lagging in recent years, a film such as "Akeelah and the Bee" is not ready-made for studio distribution, if only because it has none of those expected ingredients.

"It was unbelievably difficult to get it made," said Atchison, who formed the initial idea for the film while watching the national spelling-bee championships on ESPN a few years ago. "Studios are extremely allergic to risk. Finally, after a long courtship, Lions Gate Films agreed to make the film. They liked the idea of a sports movie where spelling was the sport, something that might be compared to 'Hoosiers' or other good sports movies, but with a younger lead character."

The key was finding the young actress to play Akeelah, and after auditioning hundreds of girls nationwide, Atchison and the studio found what they were looking for in the relatively inexperienced Keke Palmer.

"She's on every page of the script, so the actress had to be strong and incredible," Atchison said. "She displayed such a depth of understanding about the character that I knew we had the right kid."

Atchison then convinced Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett to reunite on screen for the first time since "What's Love Got to Do With It?" These characters, also, take emotional risks to help overcome past personal tragedies.

"This has the potential to be a seminal film," Atchison said. "That's if people dig it, and I think they will. This is a film with a universal message. People who are 12 and people who are 45 will get something out of it that they can take back to their own lives."