Hypable had the opportunity to sit down with Divergent helmer Neil Burger to discuss what changes were made for the film, what advice he has for the Insurgent director, and more.
We spoke to Burger during the Divergent press junket in Beverly Hills earlier this month where he greeted us warmly as he opened a freshly chilled drink. Summit is strongly hoping for the film to make a nice splash at the box office when it hits theaters today, March 21, the director has an air of calm and satisfaction about him.
Our first question was about how he got the gig – a highly coveted one thanks to the popularity of the series and the studio’s hopes of making it their next big franchise. Burger tells us that his biggest pitch to Summit was about making the story feel real in all ways – from the actors to the setting.
“In the same way we were going to treat the performances and experiences that Tris was undergoing real and emotionally present and true, I wanted to treat the world as real,” he says. “And to that end to shoot in Chicago. I wanted to avoid as much computer generated imagery as possible. I wanted to use the skyline.”
The director was concerned about separating Divergent from films that rely heavily on CGI. “You see these movies and they’re set in the future. There’s good ones and there’s bad ones, and they all seem to have the same kind of computer generated cityscape. It’s cool and an achievement in visual effects, but I always know it’s not real. It always seems painted or fake. So I thought, ‘How could I make this movie different? Let’s use Chicago as Chicago, this monumental landscape skyline.'”
Author Veronica Roth’s cameo
The decision to have her appear right before Tris rides the zip-line didn’t come immediately. There were several options on the table.
“[The producers] came to me and they said, where would you want to put Veronica in the movie? And I was like, ‘I’ve got so much that I’m working on for that to be a big thing to think about.’ So I said, ‘How about we put her on the train for capture the flag?’ ‘No, no, she doesn’t want to be that present,’ not in a primadonna way, by the way. She’s just shy. ‘How about we give her a line where she says before they jump, ‘Get ready.” ‘No she doesn’t wanna have that.’ I said, ‘Okay, how about she’s the first one through the door at the top of the Hancock building when they run up the stairs to the zipline.'”
Even though Roth was nervous about the appearance, Burger is very happy with how it turned out. “It totally works. It wouldn’t be in the movie if it wasn’t good – I don’t care who it was,” he said with a laugh.
The cameo aside, Burger worked with Roth on the adaptation on occasion when he had a question about the broader story. Those questions included what happened in the war and what was outside the wall. He also wanted to know what was coming up in the third and final book. “She was writing Allegiant at the time we were prepping the movie. ‘What was coming up?'” he asked. “What was going to happen so if I was going to make a little bit of a dramatic choice with a character, I didn’t find myself going down the wrong road for later in the series.”
Ellie Goulding
Very present in the movie is music from Ellie Goulding. Not only has her voice been subtly inserted into the score, but a few of her songs off her most recent album Halcyon Days also made the film. We asked Burger how the collaboration came to fruition.
“I had a kind of musical template that I was interested in. A sound that had this – almost the sound of Dauntless, but that worked for the whole movie,” he explains. “This sexy, compelling tribal beat. I played it for a number of different music people involved with the movie, then the music supervisor. Then we were trying to get a voice for Tris. Not specifically, but you’re trying to show her internal world in the movie which is easy to do when you’re writing a novel, but with a movie it’s a tougher thing. And so I think he, along with the people at Interscope, suggested Ellie Goulding, and presented her to me. And I said, ‘Oh that’s perfect.'”
Tips for the ‘Insurgent’ director
As has already been reported, Burger will not be returning to the franchise to direct the sequel Insurgent because of the tight turn around between the first film and second (due out March 2015). We asked Burger if he’s spoken to Insurgent helmer Robert Schwentke, and what advice he has for him going into this production.
“I’ve given him some tips already, some of which I can’t really say because of performances and things like that. It’s like client-attorney privilege – director-director privilege – but I think the one tip would be to keep it real, because the movie’s not about the future or futurism, it’s about human nature. And then everything she’s experiencing is stuff we can relate to. So you have to believe it, and make it relevant to now.”
New scenes for Jeanine Matthews (spoiler warning)
We asked Burger about the knife through Jeanine’s hand at the end of the movie – something that doesn’t occur in the book. “I added the scene that would be Jeanine Matthews versus Tris at the end because I felt like she is the main antagonist, she has to face off against Tris in a battle at the end,” he explains.
“It’s something we added to be faithful to the book in a different way. And plus a movie is a different beast and has to have a certain type of closure. So then I wrote this scene, and I also wanted to bring back Tris’ knife throwing, so I had her throw a knife like the last guard throwing a knife and nailing him and then I think it was [producer] Douglas Wick who said, ‘Why doesn’t [Tris] get Jeanine?’ I said, ‘Okay, she can’t kill Jeanine, so what about a knife right in the hand?'”
In fact, Jeanine and Kate Winslet have lots of extra screen time thanks to Burger. “I added the meeting when she first meets Tris at the Choosing Ceremony, I added the scene where Jeanine visits Dauntless and runs into Tris and speaks to her and touches her tattoo.”
We also asked Burger a question about a very minor change: Replacing paintball guns during the capture the flag scene with stun guns. He says this decision was made to make the game more dangerous – something Dauntless would accept. “It was a sort of stun dart that stimulates the pain of a gunshot wound. It was just to make it more intense, give it higher stakes, and almost make it different…more intense.”
Divergent is now in theaters and stars Shailene Woodley, Theo James, and Kate Winslet.