Lionsgate wants you to believe that Divergent is the next Twilight and Hunger Games. In a conference call this morning, the studio spent some time assuring investors that their runaway book-to-film success won’t end with Katniss’ story because they have Divergent on the horizon.

The dystopian novel set in a futuristic Chicago and written by Veronica Roth has been a hit with readers over the past couple years. The second book, Insurgent, was released May 2012, and a third (final) book is in the works by Roth.

Most interesting of what Lionsgate had to say this morning, as reported by The Wrap: Divergent’s book sales are tracking ahead of where Twilight and The Hunger Games were at a similar point in their life cycles. This would suggest that the Divergent trilogy could be as popular if not more so than the books originally by Stephenie Meyer and Suzanne Collins.

Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer had a message for readers: “We’re putting it out to our fans right now that we think this is the next big franchise.”

He went on to say that Divergent’s March 21, 2014 release date – the same time of year that The Hunger Games was released – is intentional. “We’re indicating the amount of support we have,” Feltheimer told investors.

Summit acquired the rights to Veronica Roth’s Divergent in early 2011, and at Comic-Con San Diego 2011 they were handing out copies of the book to the media and held a press conference with author Roth.

Is ‘Divergent’ the next ‘Twilight’ or ‘Hunger Games’?

We encourage you to use the question to not make comparisons to the story but the potential success.