A great interview with Divergent movie screenwriter Evan Daughtery, who goes in-depth on Veronica Roth’s story and explains why he was so drawn to the project, is now online.
What we get out of the interview with Bookish is a nice preview of what we can expect from the film’s storyline. It’s clear Daughtery feels passionate and wanted to adapt the book because of Tris’ character arc. “She starts off in that incredibly sheltered, selfless, peaceful world and then basically she decides to join the equivalent of the Navy Seals,” he said. “That’s a big character arc, it’s fun to track that. And Divergent differentiates itself by being in the vein of some movies that I really like, sort of the military training movie like Top Gun or a guilty pleasure of mine which is GI Jane.”
Daughtery also explained the biggest challenge with adapting the script. “Tracking Tris from where she starts to where she ends. It’s tricky because the book is a very packed read with a lot of big ideas. So, distilling that into a cool, faithful two-hour movie is challenging. Not only do you have to establish five factions, but you have to acknowledge that there’s a sixth entity, which is the divergent, and you also have the factionless. So there’s a world that really has to be built out for the big screen…the movie is going to do it a little more efficiently.”
Then the conversation moved specifically to the relationship of Tris and Four. “I respond to the fact that it is an action-heavy YA book, and I know – having talked to Veronica about it – she’s very proud of that fact. I get hung up on the toughness of the movie but of equal importance is the love story between Tris and Four. It’s inherently and inextricably linked to Tris’ character journey. There will be plenty of sexual tension and chemistry, but it’s important that all of that stuff doesn’t just feel like it’s thrown in, but that it all helps Tris grow as a character.”
It sounds to us like Daughtery has all his bases covered, and he’s gotten us very excited for the book-to-film adaptation slated to hit theaters March 21, 2014. Lionsgate has reportedly narrowed down the actors who are in the running to play Four to, appropriately, four. See the guys in the running. Shailene Woodley will play Tris.
Read more of Bookish’s interview with Daughtery.