Modern young adult franchises have picked up a habit of not maintaining the same directors through their multiple sequels. Both Catherine Hardwicke and Gary Ross were finished with Twilight and The Hunger Games, respectively, after just one movie, and Chris Columbus stepped away from Harry Potter after just the second. This pattern will continue with the upcoming Divergent series, as we learned back in December that Neil Burger would not be coming back to direct the follow-up, Insurgent. With production scheduled to start up in the next few months, Summit Entertainment has been working hard to find a replacement to sit in the director's chair, and today it appears as though they have found one.
Robert Schwentke, best known as the director of RED, has landed the job of helming Insurgent, according to Deadline. He will be directing from a script written by A Beautiful Mind screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, who just signed on for the film last last month. The film is set in a dystopian future where society has been split into five factions based on different virtues: Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless, and Erudite. The story follows a heroine named Beatrice 'Tris' Prior, played by Shailene Woodley, who discovers that she is what's known as Divergent - meaning that she doesn't fit into just one area of society. As she reaches her 16th birthday and must discover which faction she will spend her future in, she begins to discover the true secrets behind the society's order.
Schwentke, who hails from Germany, made his feature film debut with the German film Tattoo in 2002, but entered Hollywood for the first time in 2005 to direct Flightplan with Jodie Foster.
From there he made his first novel adaptation, bringing Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife to life with Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams in 2009.
After making Red in 2010, the most acclaimed film of his career and the biggest success at the box office, he then decided to make the incredible disaster known as R.I.P.D. (a.k.a. the most critically trashed, lowest grossing widely released film of his career.
While Divergent won't be out until March 21st, Summit is moving quickly forward with the sequel and have already announced it will be out on March 20, 2015. Are you happy about the studio's choice to direct the movie?
