The YA Countdown: New ‘Hunger Games’ Posters, Plus: ‘The Maze Runner,’ ‘Frostbite’ and More

Welcome to the YA Movie Countdown, our resident expert’s biweekly guide to young-adult book-to-film adaptations.

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The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1

With The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1’s November 21 release date coming up, Lionsgate just released a brand new set of character posters. That last batch primarily stuck to familiar faces, like Finnick and Effie, but this time we’re getting a closer look at some of the film’s new characters, namely Katniss’ camera crew, which includes Cressida (Natalie Dormer), Pollux (Elden Henson), Messalla (Evan Ross) and Castor (Wes Chatham). We also got a poster for Katniss’ personal protector, Boggs (Mahershala Ali), and Gale, too. You can check them all out below.

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The YA Countdown: ‘Frostbite’ Fundraising Underway, First Clip from ‘Maze Runner,’ and More

Not only are the releases for The Giver, The Maze Runner and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 fast approaching, but there’s also a slew of YA-to-film material flooding the Web courtesy of Divergent’s DVD and Blu-ray release. On top of that, the Vampire Academy series is still clamoring for attention and if it doesn’t get it this time around, perhaps the film franchise really will be dead.

The Frostbite Crowd-Funding Campaign Is a Go

The producers of Vampire Academy are about to take another step towards making Frostbitehappen. We’ve already told you about their plan to get a little crowd-funding going and now it’s about to happen. Leading up to today’s launch of the Frostbite IndieGoGo campaign, the producers tried to rile up some hype by teasing the initiative over at MTV and Teen.com.

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The YA Countdown: Comic-Con, ‘The 5th Wave’ Release Date, ‘Frostbite’ Fundraising and More

Vampire Academy, Divergent and The Fault in Our Stars have already come and gone, but there’s still quite a bit coming up in the YA movie realm. Not only is The Giver due out in just about a month with The Maze Runner arriving soon thereafter, but both of those movies and more are mere days away from showing off what they’ve got at San Diego Comic-Con.

YA at San Diego Comic-Con

Last year was a big year for YA at SDCC. Even though there won’t be as much going on this time around, there are a few young-adult entries worth keeping an eye on.

Thursday, July 24: The Giver in Hall H at 1:30 p.m. with stars Jeff Bridges, Brenton Thwaites, Odeya Rush, director Phillip Noyce, author Lois Lowry and some brand new exclusive footage.

Friday, July 25: The Maze Runner in Hall H at 4:20 p.m. as part of the 20th Century Fox panel.

Saturday, July 26: Entertainment Weekly: Women Who Kick Ass at 4:10 p.m. with The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1’s Natalie Dormer.

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The YA Countdown: ‘The 5th Wave,’ ‘Hunger Games: Mockingjay,’ a ‘Vampire Academy’ Sequel and More

With The Fault in Our Stars still holding on at the box office and The Giver and If I Stay creeping closer to their big debuts, there’s quite a bit of YA book-to-film promotional material floating around out there. That said, there are three standout news items that deserve the bulk of our attention. You can check out some links to new posters, stills and other miscellanea below, but then it’s on to the key components of this week’s edition of the YA Countdown: The 5^th Wave, Vampire Academy and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1.

Quick YA News:

– New poster for The Giver.
– Suki Waterhouse shows off a cool stunt while prepping for Insurgent.
– Paramount to bring John Green’s Looking for Alaska to the big screen.
– Lots of new images from If I Stay.
– Three new images from The Giver.

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Why You Need to Pay Attention to the Folks Who Made ‘The Fault in Our Stars’

It’s time to get to know and love the team behind The Fault in Our Stars because after what’s expected to be a huge Friday, June 6 start, the talent involved will have loads more to come.

In case you missed author John Green’s New York Times best seller, The Fault in Our Starsfeatures Shailene Woodley as Hazel Grace Lancaster, a teenager suffering from stage-four thyroid cancer with metastasis in her lungs. Even though her mother insists she try to make friends, attend support groups and have some fun, Hazel can’t help but to look at herself as a grenade that’s bound to explode and hurt everyone around her. However, when Hazel catches cancer survivor Augustus Waters’ (Ansel Elgort) eye, he falls for her so hard, he won’t even entertain the idea of them being apart.

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The YA Countdown: Why Can’t YA Adaptations Be Summer Blockbusters?

The summer season is most definitely the time for major moneymaking at the box office. If just about every young-adult book-to-film adaptation out there is outwardly vying to become the next Hunger Games, why not plop it down right in the middle of summer to maximize its box office potential?

Pros: The obvious pro to being a summer season release is that movies arriving during the summertime tend to be some of the year’s highest earners. If you look at last year’s top three biggest openers, two were summer debuts and the sole anomaly was The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, which arrived in November. The year before? Same thing. Hunger Games hit it big in March, but The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises both crushed it in summer slots. There’s just always more money to go around during the summer season. Generally we see a box office spike the first weekend of May and then the overall gross total flirts with the $200 million line through the end of July before the August drop-off.

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Why ‘The Giver’ Needs to Give Fans More Confidence

A little over a week ago, the very first trailer for Phillip Noyce’s adaptation of The Giver arrived. We’re talking about a Newbery Medal-winning book beloved by many and included in countless school curriculums across the country, and for good reason, too; Lois Lowry’s book is engaging, entertaining and boasts numerous themes and ideas well worth exploring.

The book focuses on an 11-year-old boy named Jonas. He lives in a community of “Sameness,” a place devoid of individuality. In an effort to maintain order, every citizen follows a strict set of rules, one of which is that, at the age of 12, every child is assigned the job that he or she will hold for the rest of his or her life. Whereas most kids wind up working in law, the fish hatchery or perhaps studying to become a doctor, Jonas gets the most unlikely duty of all. He is to be the Receiver of Memory, which requires he train with the Giver, the only person in the community who has access to memories and, in turn, the truth.

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Can ‘Divergent’ Really Become the Next ‘Hunger Games’?

Will Divergent be the next Hunger Games? Are you sick of that question yet? Now that we’re only about three weeks away from the film’s release, we’re close enough that we can answer that question and be done with it.

AT THE BOX OFFICE

Obviously we won’t have an official opening weekend estimate until Sunday, March 23, but at this point predictions should be fairly accurate. Back in January I suggested the film could open with about $45 million. Well, I’m upping that. All of the original factors are still in play – a popular property, big-name stars, some moderate box office competition – but now I’m inclined to believe that repeat viewings and positive word of mouth could have an impact as well, possibly boosting Divergent’s opening total to a number that falls in the $50 to $60 million range.

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Will ‘Vampire Academy”s Bad Box Office Kill the YA Craze?

Vampire Academy was having a good time riding the young-adult book-to-film wave. It had the director of Mean Girls, the writer of Heathers and a number of hot, new up-and-comers, but the film still tanked at the box office. In fact, it didn’t just tank — it crashed and burned until there was little to nothing left. The film opened with an abysmal $1,466 per theater average, leaving it just $3.9 million for its opening weekend and putting it well behind last year’s biggest YA losers, Beautiful Creatures, The Host and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.

You’d think with an opening that low, it wouldn’t have all that far to fall in its second weekend out, but no. Vampire Academy couldn’t even hold on to half of its opening-weekend profits, bumping it all the way down from number seven to number 14 in its second weekend. There’s a good chance this thing won’t even be in theaters for a full two months.

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YA Movie Countdown: Which Young-Adult Films Will Be the Big Moneymakers of 2014?

Anticipation is one thing, but this is a business and that means that come release time, our six impending young adult book-to-film adaptations will primarily be judged by their box office hauls – especially considering four of the six are part of multiple-book series. Things can change, particularly if some of these prove to be high quality adaptations, but at the moment, here’s how the box office potential of this year’s crop of YA films breaks down.

VAMPIRE ACADEMY
February 7

This one is going to be a toss-up. The Weinstein Company just uprooted Vampire Academyfrom its original Valentine’s Day release and plopped it back down in the February 7 slot where it’ll face off against The Lego Movie and Monuments Men. Even though both are potential big earners, this could be a smart move because not only is February 14 overloaded with new material, but that new material includes two films that could threaten some of Vampire Academy’s target audience: the Alex Pettyfer romance Endless Love and the book-to-film adaptation Winter’s Tale.

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