Kate Winslet will star alongside Shailene Woodley and Theo James in Summit Entertainment’s “Divergent,” Summit and Lionsgate announced on Thursday. Winslet will play Jeanine Matthews in the forthcoming action adventure film, an adaptation of Veronica Roth’s young-adult novel.
Evan Daughterty, who wrote “Snow White and the Huntsman,” took a first pass at adapting the novel, and “Hope Springs” writer Vanessa Taylor is credited with the script. “Limitless'” Neil Burger will direct, with Doug Wick, Lucy Fisher and Pouya Shahbazian producing.
Roth’s futuristic novel is set in a world where people have been separated into factions based on their personalities. Woodley will play Tris Prior, a divergent, the type of person who doesn’t belong in any group and is at risk of destruction.
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The film will begin production in Chicago this April; it will be released by Summit on March 21, 2014.
Published in May 2011, Roth wrote the bestselling novel while studying at Northwestern University. The book is the first part in a trilogy, the second of which, “Insurgent,” hit shelves last May.
Summit has had tremendous success with the young adult genre, as the studio behind “The Twilight Saga.” Lionsgate, which acquired Summit in January 2012, distributes “The Hunger Games” films.