The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 marked our penultimate excursion to the dystopian world of Panem, but one other massively popular YA franchise still has three films coming down the pipeline. Though Divergent received mixed reviews, it was a box office giant, and so the folks over at Summit Entertainment are undoubtedly rubbing their hands together in anticipation for this spring’s sequel Insurgent. Recently, a new image was released from the film, and Summit firmed up plans for future entries by signing the film’s helmer for threequel Allegiant – Part 1.
Robert Schwentke (RIPD) replaced Neil Burger in the director’s chair after Divergent, and it looks like Summit is happy with the job he’s done on Insurgent. It’s unclear whether Schwentke will also take on Allegiant – Part 2, the franchise’s final entry, but the studio likely wants to see how audiences and critics respond to Insurgent before they give him a golden key.
Meanwhile, the new image from Insurgent finds leads Tris (Shailene Woodley), Four (Theo James) and Caleb (Ansel Elgort) fleeing some unknown danger. It’s a grounded and exciting image in keeping with the sequel’s raised stakes and scale. Though there’s not much to go on with the image alone, it’s accompanied by a caption promising a full trailer for the film on this Friday, December 12.
So far, all we’ve seen from the sequel is a rather off-putting teaser that turns Tris into a superhero and raises the CGI to ridiculous levels. Though that clip was a disappointing start to Summit’s marketing campaign, we’ll be sure to tune in on Friday to get a better idea of what Insurgent is all about. Here’s the official synopsis:
The Divergent Series: Insurgent raises the stakes for Tris as she searches for allies and answers in the ruins of a futuristic Chicago. Tris (Woodley) and Four (James) are now fugitives on the run, hunted by Jeanine (Winslet), the leader of the power-hungry Erudite elite. Racing against time, they must find out what Tris’s family sacrificed their lives to protect, and why the Erudite leaders will do anything to stop them. Haunted by her past choices but desperate to protect the ones she loves, Tris, with Four at her side, faces one impossible challenge after another as they unlock the truth about the past and ultimately the future of their world.
The Divergent Series: Insurgent stars Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Ansel Elgort, Kate Winslet, Naomi Watts, Octavia Spencer, Jai Courtney, Miles Teller and Zoe Kravitz. It opens March 20, 2015.