Boxoffice® Pro - March 2014

BIG PICTURE > DIVERGENT
“It was a manuscript by a young
writer that was making the rounds,”
adds Wick. “We read it and thought
she was an incredibly fresh, original
voice and natural storyteller.”
The producing team was pleasantly
surprised that, as Wick characterizes
it, “a student sitting around
a dorm would write a manuscript
that was primitive in its emotional
connection and also sophisticated in
telling an emotional rite of passage
in a kind of operatic story.” It didn’t
take long before the producers
approached Summit/Lionsgate to
express their interest in the story.
Divergent takes place in a futuristic
Chicago where society has been
divided into five different factions,
separating the city’s residents
according to specific personality
traits. At the age of 16, all citizens
take a test that reveals which faction
they belong to. They then have the
choice to join their newly revealed
faction or stay with their family in
their current one. When Tris Prior
discovers she is Divergent, a person
who doesn’t fit into any specific faction,
she begins an odyssey that pits
her against powerful people set out
to eliminate all Divergent individuals
from society.
Lucy Fisher was drawn to the
material instantly, she says, finding
at its core “a young person writing
about another young person finding
their own identity.” Fisher emphasizes
the story’s themes of self-discovery and identity that are universal
for young people as they grapple with their own insecurities: “If I show
people who I really am, will they like me or will they kill me?”
Shailene Woodley, as
Beatrice “Tris” Prior, is
tested to determine her
faction in futuristic Chicago
Those themes clearly resonated in the highly competitive young-adult
literary market as well, and Roth’s first novel was quickly catapulted to the
top of the best-seller list. Summit/Lionsgate had already secured the film
rights by that point. “We brought them the manuscript, they bought it
and have been involved in every aspect of development, production, and
distribution since,” says Wick.
The project is in line with the studio’s recent blockbuster success after
bringing the Hunger Games series to the big screen. “There’s no other studio
that understands these type of films better and is more savvy at finding
the audience for them,” says Wick.
The release date is the most obvious strategy that Summit/Lionsgate
is borrowing from the Hunger Games playbook. Divergent will open on
March 21, the same weekend that made The Hunger Games a smash hit in
2012, and a date that Fisher describes as, “the sweet spot after Christmas
and before the big summer rush.”
The calendar doesn’t guarantee success for the genre, however, a lesson
that The Host learned the hard way with a $10.6 million opening weekend
in the same frame last year. The Host was meant to continue the momentum
stemming from the cross-quadrant appeal of author Stephenie
Meyer’s Twilight series, but the project failed to gain any traction at the
box office. The Host finished its run in North America with a disappointing
$26.6 million haul.
The Hunger Games might be the gold standard in terms of succeeding
in the market, but recent box office
misfires aimed at the same youngadult
demographic loom ominously
in the background. The Mortal Instruments:
City of Bones had a similar
box office performance as The Host,
taking a $9.3 million opening weekend
from late August and finishing
with a $31.1 million tally in North
America. Ender’s Game showed
promise with a $27 million opening
weekend in early November, but
the sci-fi film was unable to post
consistent holds at the box office
and concluded its North American
run with $61.7 million.
The studio has faith that Divergent
can thrive at the box office. A
sequel, Insurgent, is scheduled to
shoot this summer, with the studio
aiming for a March 2015 release.
Producers on the film are also optimistic,
noting the source material’s
strength has proven itself in recent
months.
“When we made the movie, two
of the books had been written and
had sold two or three million copies,”
explains Fisher. “By the time we
finished the movie, the third book
had already been released. The series
will be at around 14 million in sales
by the time the movie comes out.”
That level of pre-awareness helps
Divergent stand out in the marketplace,
but the production team
knew they needed to package the
film with the right talent in order to
make it a hit. Like The Hunger Games, Divergent looked at the independent
circuit to find its young female star. Jennifer Lawrence broke through
with her Academy Award–nominated performance in the independent
drama Winter’s Bone, the Grand Jury winner for a dramatic film at the
2010 Sundance Film Festival. Lawrence’s indie background proved she
had the potential to become a mainstream star; The Hunger Games turned
that potential into a reality.
Shailene Woodley impressed critics and audiences alike with strong
performances in Alexander Payne’s The Descendants and last year’s Sundance
darling The Spectacular Now. The producers settled on Woodley as
their lead on the same day they met her, immediately sensing her potential
to become a star in her own right. Their search for the male lead, Four,
would take them around the world before finding Theo James, a young
English actor with the acting chops and leading-man looks necessary to
play opposite Woodley.
Creating the futuristic society of Divergent presented one of the biggest
yet most appealing challenges for the producers. “It required a very high
skill set,” explains Wick. “The director had to have a real nose for performance
because it’s a character-driven movie. It’s also a movie that involves
world creation, which necessitates the visual skills and intelligence to
create a coherent world with science-fiction elements—a combination of
utopia and dystopia. They have to pull that off along with an unusual mix
of highly personal and epic elements.”
Neil Burger won the job, bringing with him the experience of balancing
intricate production design and a touch for nurturing performances in
films like The Illusionist and Limitless.
46 BoxOffice ® Pro The Business of Movies MARCH 2014