Shailene Woodley is certainly doing her part to make sure the upcoming film adaptation of the wildly popular young adult novel Divergent hits all of its marks, going so far as to put herself in harm’s way by standing on a ledge. Director Neil Burger recently gushed to Entertainment Weekly about how the actress was “incredibly game and so adventurous,” saying:
”She really did stand on that ledge. She’s incredibly game and so adventurous. In a way, she’s very Dauntless.”
While the early reviews on Divergent have been mixed, even the negative ones are calling it the second best YA adaptation after the behemoth Hunger Games franchise. That being said, reviews for these sorts of films are to be taken with a grain of salt, as they are not written by the intended audience. The novel that Divergent is based on seems to have truly resonated with a younger crowd and the film could easily accomplish that same feat.
It’s also important to remember that none of the Twilight films ever achieved over 50% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, but that didn’t stop the franchise from steamrolling everything in its path. Current projections for Divergent are pegging it for an opening weekend around $50 million dollars, and with positive word of mouth on social media, it could easily eclipse that number.
Perhaps the biggest bright spot here though is Shailene Woodley, who has been a young starlet to watch for a few years now. Her performances in The Descendants and The Spectacular Now were stellar and she truly bared herself emotionally in each film. In fact, I firmly believe that her touching and affecting role James Ponsoldt’s coming of age drama should have landed her an Oscar nomination. With the incredibly talented actress at the helm, my hopes are quite high for this YA adaptation and I’m definitely rooting for it to succeed with both critics, and audiences.
Divergent will arrive in theatres on Friday, March 21st.
