The entire Divergent franchise (2014-2016) and Adventureland (2009)

Film Stories with Simon Brew

Simon Brew

Tv & Film, Film History

4.9 • 767 Ratings

🗓️ 8 September 2025

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Twilight and The Hunger Games set the bar high for young adult movie adaptations in late 2000s/early 2010s, and when Veronica Roth's Divergent series of books came onto the market, a deal was soon struck. The plan? A trilogy of movies, which soon expanded to four films. The challenge? Making them to hit an annual release slot, against a backdrop of overlapping schedules and keeping the audience interested. Things would not go to plan. Kristen Stewart meanwhile would take a day in the midst of the schedule for 2009's Adventureland to basically audition for the first Twilight film. But Greg Mottola's sort-of-autobiographical comedy drama would be release afterTwilight - and it was a production that faced the peril of making winter in a theme park look like summer. Stories of both are told in this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'll now hand you over to my best man, Eddie.
0:04.0	Wow, wow, wow, second time's a charm, eh, Billy Boy?
0:09.0	Oh God.
0:10.0	Substitution, courtesy of Paddy Power, embarrassing Eddie, makes way for sensible Samuel.
0:15.0	Cool, that was close.
0:16.0	You might not always pick the right starter, but your sub can still deliver.
0:19.0	Because with Paddy's super sub, your bet rolls over to the player coming on. Panny Power. Valid on selected leagues and
0:24.3	markets only. Pre-match and in-play bets on qualifying player outcome selections only. Tis and Clusions apply. 18 plus scummelaware. Dot-Ower. At Betway, we've signed Tieri-on-Rie to kickstart our season. Come and join Betway today and get up to £30 match-free bet if your first stacker loses.
0:39.4	18 plus T-N-Z Supply, bet the responsible kickstar our season. Come and join Betway today and get up to £30 match-free bet if your first
0:38.3	acker loses. 18 plus tis and C supply, bet the responsible way, gamblerware.org. It's a very sad
0:47.0	state of affairs. You look on the shelves of a DVD, Blu-ray 4K collection. there's a box set just sat there that's supposed to have four films in it.
1:00.3	It's only got three.
1:02.4	Something went wrong.
1:04.4	And this is the story of the Divergent saga, the series of movies based on Veronica, Veronica Roth's books,
1:14.6	the three films concerned, Divergent 2014.
1:18.6	The Divergent series, colon, insurgent, 2015.
1:23.1	The Divergent series, colon, Allegiant, 2016.
1:30.2	And they're supposed to be the Divergent series Colon ascendant 2017 we will get to that the early the late 2000s the early 2000s and tens were the
1:41.0	time of the young adult boom in Hollywood. That, I mean, Harry Potter hadn't
1:48.1	quite been there. It was skewing a little bit broader, perhaps a little bit younger, I don't know,
1:52.4	but the first Twilight film in 2008 lit a touch paper and then the subsequent sequels.
2:00.2	2009 is the Twilight Saga New Moon, 2009. The Twilight
	...

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