Director of March's Divergint, with Shailene Woodley and Kate Winslet, is not coming back for the 2015 sequel.
In a move that should start appearing familiar to followers of Hollywood’s YA adaptations, the franchise’s launching director is not returning in another series. It has been revealed that Summit Entertainment/Lionsgate’s Divergent series will be parting ways with Neil Burger after the release of Divergentin March 2014.
Burger, who is spearheading the sci-fi dystopian story of a girl who dared to be different in an authoritarian regime that values collective compliance, was said in a press release to have been unable to finish post-production on Divergentand simultaneously begin pre-production on 2015’s already slated sequel, Insurgent.
The Summit press release says, “Neil Burger is a rock star and he is doing a fantastic job on Divergent. We can’t wait for you to see the film. But as amazing as Neil is he still cannot be in two places at once and thus needs to finish post production on Divergentwhile we gear up to start production on Insurgent."
This is also intriguing as Summit has already dated Allegiant, the third and final film in the trilogy, for March 18, 2016.
This sort of news should not appear uncommon in the subgenre of “YA,” particularly coming from the Lionsgate/Summit brands. The Hunger Games, which launched in 2012 from the same weekend that Divergent is currently holding, said goodbye to its director Gary Foster after the first film, albeit this followed a longer courting process to get Foster to return for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Also, Summit’s previous YA success story, Twilight, never kept the same director for more than one film, save for when they cut fourth novel Breaking Dawn into two parts for Bill Condon to shoot.
Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer is said to view YA adaptations as a market that the studio (and its multiple brands) can keep a hold of for the years to come following the successes of Twilight and Hunger Games. It would appear that they are confident Divergentmay soon join that list.
Divergent opens March 21, 2014.
SOURCE: Variety
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mmmmm burger