@JordanDane
In no particular order, I am looking forward to THREE movies that originated as YA series books. From everything I have seen, the casting looks really good and I am keeping my fingers and toes crossed that the screen adaptation is as solid as the Hunger Games screenplay that Suzanne Collins had a hand in writing. Can you imagine what a thrill it was or will be for these authors to see their books on the big screen? For readers to see it? Woot!
Hunger Games #2 – Catching Fire (Suzanne Collins)
Casting Jennifer Lawrence really made this movie perfect for me. I saw her in Winter’s Bone and loved her acting chops. As an actress, she has made some really amazing choices in movie scripts. Silver Linings Playbook was a great film too.
In the continuation of the series, more key secondary characters will be added and I look forward to seeing how closely this next movie sticks to the books. Here is the IMDB link to the movie and the release date is November 22, 2013. In my opinion, I was a little disappointed that Catching Fire was so similar to the first book. It felt as if Collins wanted to get #1 right and took another stab at it, like another Rocky movie. she played up the love triangle more in book #2, to set up book #3 – Mockingjay. I find it interesting that Suzanne Collins did not write the script on book #2. My speculation is that this film will diverge from the books to set up the final conflict.
Sam Claflin looks like a good choice, physically for Finnick Odair, a key player in the series. He’s gorgeous. And hopefully we will see more of Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson as Gale and Peeta.
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| Sam Claflin (Finnick) |
Mortal Instruments – City of Bones (Cassandra Clare)
Cassandra Clare is listed as a writer on the screenplay. I’m excited about that. The strength of her books is her characterizations and her amazing story arcs for all the characters, even secondary ones. Her world building is amazing too, but as a writer I loved how she kept every character growing over the series.
From what I’ve seen of the cast, there will be some extreme eye candy for everyone. Lily Collins is perfect as Clary and I love Jamie Campbell Bower as Jace, even though I know he wasn’t people’s first choice. I think moviegoers will fall in love with this guy once they see him in the part. Here is the IMDB link. The movie will be released August 21, 2013. I can smell the popcorn now. My niece and her mom, my spectacular sister, go together to see movies made from YA books. I gave this series to them as a Christmas present and we’ve had this movie on our radar for a long time. Can’t wait.
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| Lily Collins (Clary) & Jamie Campbell Bower (Jace) |
Divergent (Veronica Roth)
I saw an interview with the lead actress today, who will play Tris. Seeing Shailene Woodley on Jon Stewart The Daily Show inspired this post. She did a great interview and was very entertaining and well-spoken. I don't see her as the image of Tris in my mind, but actors can bring so much to the table that I would love to see her in this role.
So I looked into the movie. OMG, Theo James will play Four. He is PERFECT for this role! Here is the IMDB link. The movie will be released March 21, 2014. Veronica Roth is only listed with a credit for her novel, so she didn’t contribute to the screenplay as a writer with credits there. The strength of these books is Roth’s world building and the way she ramped up the stakes in these novels, especially with her endings that foreshadow things to come that make you want to grab the next book, but the plot structure within each book wasn’t as strong (screenplay-wise) as Suzanne Collins or Cassandra Clare’s books.
I’m sure Roth had input to the screenplay treatment (the preliminary adaptation summary of the plot structure that the script will attempt to follow) and with popular books like this, filmmakers will want to stay true to the world they are trying to build into a movie franchise. Hollywood had a lot to work with in Roth’s books, so fingers crossed on this one too. Can’t wait to see it.
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| Theo James (Four) & Shailene Woodley (Tris) |
So let’s take a quick poll in comments. Which of these movies are you most anxious to see? If there are other movies coming up that were adapted from YA books, please share them in your comments. I’d love to hear about them.
On the side bar to our YA blog, I have a poll set up for these three movies. Vote for one. Polling ends Aug 4th at NOON. Let your voice be heard here!
5 comments:
Of these three I'm most excited about City of Bones. Probably because it's coming out next month! :D but also because I didn't love the first Hunger Games movie. The casting was fine but I thought that directorial and script wise they made some odd choices.
As for Divergent - I loved the book and can't wait for the film. I hope that the actress can do Tris justice because I was one of those people unhappy about the casting. But only time will tell I suppose.
You've successfully made me super excited about City of Bones again! I really can't wait!!
Kate @ whYAnot Reviews
I love that Cassandra Clare worked on the screenplay. That gives me hope the movie might stick closer to her vision.
I really hope Divergent is good. I saw Tris so differently than the actress they chose, but in the interview I saw of her, I had hopes she could do the job.
I am really excited to see a string of movies based on YA books.
Thanks, Kate. BTW, have you ever followed Jamie Campbell Bower on Twitter? The guy is very strange, very British, and oddly funny. I haven't followed his tweets recently, but I might have to catch up on his weirdness.
Kate--When I picture Tris in my mind as I read Divergent, I saw someone who physically is small and looks more like Ellen Page.
I'm really looking forward to an older YA novel Ender's Game!
Ender's Game looks great. It comes out Nov 1, 2013. The character conflict sounds like an incredible premise. November looks like a very good month for YA books made into movies. Thanks, Maureen.
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