Summit Announce Robert Schwentke As New Director For "Insurgent"

The sequel to 2013’s token teen dystopian fic Divergent has just ended up with a new director - Robert Schwentke. Summit made the announcement on Tuesday, via the LA Times. It’s not unusual for a film franchise to switch directors between installments, sometimes more than once. What’s strange is when a director leaves the project even before the first film is released, as is the case with this adaptation of Veronica Roth’s young adult series.

Ahead of the release of Divergent, Summit has announced a new director for the sequel.

The first film was directed by Neil Burger (Limitless, The Lucky Ones). His replacement Schwentke has some experience with the fantasy genre, having worked on The Time Traveler’s Wife and 2013’s R.I.P.D. He is also the director behind the well-received action/comedy Red. All in all, it sounds like Insurgent is in good hands.

Watch the Divergent trailer below.

The trilogy, starring Shailene Woodley tells the story of Tris Prior – a teenager in a future Chicago, where teenagers get separated into “factions” at age 16. People get divided based on their personalities and virtues and then raised to perform specific tasks in society, rarely mingling with members of other factions. Tris’ personality test reveals she is divergent, or has an aptitude for multiple factions and doesn’t fall neatly into one category — a dangerous trait in the rigidly divided society.

Shailene Woodley plays Beatrice - a frustrated teenager, who discovers she is different and chooses a new life for herself.

She hides her divergence and decides to join the faction based on bravery, where she meets new friends and plenty of enemies and has the chance to discover unsuspected truths about herself and the world she inhabits. Divergent is out in the US on March 21^st and in the UK on April 4.

Theo James plays Tris' love interest, Four.