Divergent, The Hunger Games and the dystopian YA trend

by Spencer Blohm

You’re likely familiar, if only in passing, with the Divergent series of books by Veronica Roth, or perhaps you’ve even heard about them on this blog. It’s also likely, thanks to the massive advertising and marketing push by Summit Entertainment, you know that the first book in the series, Divergent, has begun to hit theaters worldwide. It’s the latest in a string of YA dystopian books to be adapted into films, and by the looks of it, it certainly isn’t going to be the last.

In 2012 the massively successful The Hunger Games hit theaters and broke box office records, pulling in $691 million worldwide. It is, of course, based off The Hunger Games book series by Suzanne Collins. While Divergent and The Hunger Games have been compared endlessly in the weeks leading up to the film’s release, the similarities are merely on the surface. They do both feature strong female lead characters fighting an oppressive government set in a dystopian future... but the general themes are very different.

While Divergent hasn’t had as big of an opening weekend as The Hunger Games in the U.S., it still pulled in an impressive $54 million it’s opening weekend and reviews of the movie seem to be generally mixed. Examples of this include Detroit News’ Tom Long saying, “Fans of the book will likely be pleased. More importantly people who don’t know a thing about the books may get swept up, as well.” On the other hand, Scene-Stealer’s Eric Melin blasted the “humorless, dumb script” and film critic Eric D. Snider called the film “nothing more than facile, easily digested teenage wish-fulfillment based on a shaky futurist premise.” The general consensus appears to be that if you liked the books, you’ll likely enjoy the movie.

Many readers may only think of the two aforementioned series, Hunger Games and Divergent, when you think of dystopian YA series, but they were actually late to the game compared to older works like Ender’s Game. The Ender’s Game series by Orson Scott Card was a popular book series in the 80’s which followed the conflicts between Earth and an alien race set in the future. The first book of the series was adapted into a film in 2013 (which you can catch through services like Amazon Prime and DirecTV). However, it failed to make an impact on moviegoers, perhaps because the film came out almost 30 years after the book.

Not all hope is lost for YA dystopian fans though if you didn’t enjoy Divergent, though, because The Giver will be in theaters the end of this summer. After taking nearly 20 years to get from the page to the screen, it’s finally made it, with a knockout cast attached too. Jeff Bridges will be playing the titular character opposite Meryl Streep as Chief Elder and newcomer Brenton Thwaites as Jonas. In addition to that, Katie Holmes and Alexander Skarsgard will be playing Jonas parents, and Taylor Swift will be taking the role of Rosemary. Based off the newly released trailer, I think this one is going to give all of us something else to talk about in a few months.

The Unofficial Addiction News: Books Into Movies

Book Addicts,

It's common knowledge that our beloved YA novels are a complete success in the big screen. It's not something new, thought, because Harry Potter and Twilight were a boom in our cinemas, however now we're seeing more YA novels turning into movies, having an defined image to associate our fellow heroes/heroines. 

We totally support this. What could be better than see the novels we heart in the cinemas or in the TV of your house? Because the young adult madness not only infected the big screen but also the small one, the one in our houses. If not a movie what else? TV shows.

As long as they do a good job we're on the Hollywood train. We're madly in love with The Hunger Games, we even bought the blu-ray! (*Wrin*), but if you have not read the book there are some parts missing. Don't you think?

Or what about The Vampire Diaries? We really like the TV show (Go Klaus! Go Damon! Sorry a moment of male weakness), however, have you read the books? I think the only thing the TV show and the books have in common is the name of the characters and their behavior. We are not saying we do not love the show! We would even do a flag with I love Vampire Diaries/Damon/Klaus when the show will start again.

What is this post about? We've been snooping around IMDB. Yep, we were curious to see how much money we would need to safe in order to go to all the premieres of the YA books turned into books that we love. And, guys, we need to find a better job, because the list is not long, it's huge, enormous, gigantic!!

And we're going to share the amazing lists that we've found:

   

But we want to show you more about this list. First of all, we want to show you the poster of the series that everybody is dying to see: The Hunger Games.

What do you think? Do you like the promotional poster of the movie? Go Katniss!

But we've also found sneak peaks of the upcoming movie Divergent. Although this movie won't be in cinemas until 2014, we've search in the IMDB site for photos from the movie. We wanted to see if what they are going to show us about Tris' world in the big screen. We couldn't find the official poster of the movie, but we've got pictures of Tris & Four!

What do you think about the actors that are going to be Tris & Four?

Another movie we're dying to see is The Maze Runner. Not just because we love the book, but because of the actor that is going to play Thomas' role: Dylan O'Brien. We're in love with his character in Teen Wolf, Stiles, and now having him in the big screen? In this YA novel? Where do we have to get the tickets? And guess who'll be Teresa? Kaya Scodelario from the TV show Skins.

And we don't have official photos from the movie, but we know who are going to play the characters in the Vampire Academy movie!

In order:

Olga Kurylenki as Kirova

Sarah Hyland as Natalie Dashkov

Zoey Deutch as Rose Hathaway

Cameron Monaghan as Mason Ashford

Danila Kozlovsky as Dimitri Belikov

Sami Gayle as Mia Rinaldi

Shelly Crane's book, Significance will be in our cinemas next year, too. Want to now the cast?

In order:

Jeremy Sumpter as Caleb Jacobson

Michael Welch as Marcus Watson

Ian Whyte as Sikes Watson

Jama Williamson as Rachel Jacobson

Piers Stubbs as Rylan

Cara Calderaio as Anna

What do you think, Book Addicts, about books becoming TV Shows/Movies? 

To see more YA books that are becoming Movies & TV Shows, go to the IMDB list and/or the goodreads list. Click on the banners in this post to go to the sites.

The Unofficial Addiction News: Divergent Movie

Book Addicts,

It is well-known that Divergent, the first book in Veronica Roth's YA series, started filming in Chicago a few weeks ago, in April.

So many movies based in books are being made and we are thrilled with this idea. We are always looking the same in movie and, at least, the books adaptations will provide some thrill to this movie world.

Divergent takes place in a dystopian future where society is divided up into five factions and when they turn sixteen they have to decide a faction. Interested much, uh?

And who is going to be Tris Prior?

Shailene Woodley aslo seen in the TV show The Secret Life of The American Teenager or also in the movie The Descendants where she played George Clooney's daughter. Yes, lucky her. Although some of us would like to play Mr. Clooney's girlfriend (*wink*).

As far as we know, she's playing Beatrice "Tris" Prior's roll in the Divergent movie along with Kate Winslet as Jeanine Matthews and Miles Teller as Peter.

We would also see Ansel Elgort playing the roll of Caleb Prior (yummy!). Although some of the Divergent fans would have wanted to see Alex Pettyfer as Four or Benjamin Stone also as Four, the chosen one is Theo James also seen in The Underworld movie.

It is also known that the daughter of Lenny Kravitz, Zoe Isabella Kravitz, would be in this film as Christina.
Wow, seems that the Kravitz family is going to be in Hollywood for a while, because we are expecting to see hot-papa in Catching Fire, the second film of The Hunger Games series.

We do not know if we are thrilled about this cast. We were expecting also Pettyfer to be shown as Four and it is kind of a deception to not see him (*snif, sniff*). But as soon as we see some trailer or more photos about the film, we think we would be able to decide what Gorjuss Ranking this cast is in.  

Because we have not material to judge, yet, we are going to show you, Book Addicts, the only photo we have found:

To know more about the film, click on the icon below.

What do you think about the cast?

The Unofficial Addiction News: Allegiant Cover Reveal

Book Addicts,

We have Unofficial Addiction News! We are glad to reveal to you the cover of the third Divergent book: Allegiant by Veronica Roth.

Description:

"One choice will define you.

What if your whole world was a lie?

What if a single revelation—like a single choice—changed everything?

What if love and loyalty made you do things you never expected?

The explosive conclusion to Veronica Roth’s #1 New York Times bestselling Divergent trilogy reveals the secrets of the dystopian world that has captivated millions of readers in Divergent and Insurgent."

We personally think both are marvelous, but we have to choose. So, we would take the first one, the one with the water symbol. We are hoping that the reading would be as amazing as the cover and the other two books.

What do you think? Which cover do you like the most?