The Descendants actress Shailene Woodley has become quite popular over the last week. It was recently announced that she's in talks to play Mary Jane in Marc Webb's sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man, and now she's looking to take on the lead role in a futuristic sci-fi thriller called Divergent.
Divergent is a book recently picked up by Summit Entertainment with The Illusionist and Limitless director Neil Burger set to develop it. The stoy has been likened to The Hunger Games as it features teen on teen violence. It centers on a 16-year-old girl named Beatrice Prior, who lives in a world where society is divided into five factions that each represent a particular virtue: honesty, selflessness, bravery, peacefulness and intelligence.
Woodley has proven to be a very talented young actress, and I can see why studios are trying to cast her in these movies. It's always interesting to watch young actors' careers blow up.
This is the first book in a trilogy that author Veronica Roth has planned, and here's the description:
In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.
During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her