Divergent Photos Show Teens Doing Stuff

By Rudie Obias | Updated 5 years ago

In less than a month, Divergent hits theaters across the country. We’ll know by opening weekend whether or not the adaptation of Veronica Roth’s best-selling young adult novel will be another hit franchise for Lionsgate like The Hunger Games, or if it will be a dead in the water non-starter like The Golden Compass, The Spiderwick Chronicles, and Beautiful Creatures.

To build anticipation and awareness for the late March release date, Entertainment Weekly features stars Shailene Woodley and Theo James. The coinciding article centers on how Hollywood needs Divergent to succeed. While studios make a lot of young adult films, only three—Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Gamesp—have generated enough steam to become certified franchises.

The magazine also unveiled a bunch of new images that highlight the film’s action. The pictures focus on Miles Teller, who plays Peter, and who has been on a tear in Hollywood as of late. He appeared in the indie darling The Spectacular Now with along with Woodley last year, as he has starring roles in That Awkward Moment, Two Night Stand, and Whiplash. Teller was also recently cast as a very young Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic in director Josh Trank’s hipster version of The Fantastic Four. It looks like Lionsgate is trying to attract the young male audience to Divergent by focusing some of its marketing on Teller.

Meanwhile, movie tickets for Divergent will be available for pre-sale through Fandango and MovieTickets.com starting on March 4th. If you buy your ticket early, you’ll receive a FREE E-Book of the best-selling novel. This latest dystopian YA tale is tracking at an opening weekend box office of upwards of $50 million, according to The Wrap. With a budget of $80 million, this definitely bodes well for the film’s chances of being the next Hunger Games.

If the movie is any good, it might also have that week-to-week staying power that The Hunger Games: Catching Fire experienced last November. However, if the movie fails to resonate with critics and audiences, then Divergent will be extremely front-loaded and drop off in a big way in its second week, just like most of the movies in The Twilight Saga. Let’s hope for the best.

Divergent is set in a post-apocalyptic Chicago, where people are separated into five distinct factions and its citizens are divided based on dominant personality traits. However, some of these people are unique and cannot be classified and thus these people are called “Divergent” and have no place in society. The story follows Beatrice “Tris” Prior (Woodley), who is discovered to be divergent and must figure out how to stay alive in this new dystopian world.

Evan Daugherty (Snow White and the Huntsman) and Vanessa Taylor (Hope Springs) co-wrote the screenplay, while Neil Burger (Limitless) directed the film.In addition to Woodley, James, and Teller, Divergent stars Kate Winslet, Ansel Elgort, Ray Stevenson, Zoë Kravitz, Maggie Q, Jai Courtney, Tony Goldwyn, Ashley Judd, and Mekhi Phifer.

Divergent hits IMAX theaters everywhere on March 21.

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