Update: The Hollywood Reporter has a batch of stills from **Divergent **to peruse, including shots of Shailene Woodley's Tris undergoing the aptitude test that dictates the faction to which she, and all Chicago citizens, will be allocated. Click here for the full photo gallery.
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It's turning into one of those good-news/bad-news days for Shailene Woodley. The bad news that her character, Mary Jane Watson, has been cut from **The Amazing Spider-Man 2 comes with a cheerier reminder that the young actress has another breakthrough role, in young adult adaptation Divergent, in the offing. Still, we're recommending she steers clear of parachutes, hay bales and pitchforks until further notice, because... well, you know how it goes.
This week's Entertainment Weekly leads with snaps of Woodley's heroine Beatrice 'Tris' Prior gearing up for whatever mayhem the sci-fi throws at her. It was knives last time; this time there's train leaps, boxing and shotguns. Behind her is Theo James as her trainer (and maybe more?) who's initially known only as Four.
Click image above for more pictures from Entertainment Weekly.
Adapted from the first part of Veronica Roth's young adult trilogy, the story is set in a dystopian future Chicago, where Woodley's Tris struggles to fit into a repressive, homogeneous society.
In Tris’ world, people are divided up in five separate factions, each meant to uphold a particular human virtue: Abnegation (the selfless), Amity (the peaceful), Candor (the honest), Dauntless (the brave) and Erudite (the intelligent). Every year on Choosing Day, 16 year-olds are given an aptitude test, which tells them which faction they belong in (no matter which one they were born into). But Tris is Divergent, which means she's suitable for several different factions, and she's cautioned to keep this a secret because it makes her dangerous to her society's leaders.
There's shades of Katniss Everdeen in all this perhaps, but with interesting notions of conformity and rebellion at play. Neil Burger's last sci-fi was Limitless, such a twisted joy, so the hope is that this maybe-franchise can match its rival in quality as well as themes. Kate Winslet, Jai Courtnay, Zoë Kravitz, Ashley Judd, Maggie Q and Ray 'Punisher' Stevenson are also on board.
**Divergent **heads to these shores on March 21 next year.