In July, word arrived that Kung Fu Panda veteran director Jennifer Yuh Nelson was leaping across to live-action with YA fiction adaptation Darkest Minds. She's found the young woman to star in the film in The Hunger Games' Rue, AKA Amandla Stenberg.
She should feel right at home in the Darkest Minds universe, adapted from Alexandra Bracken's book, which kicks off a trilogy of tomes. The story is set in a world where a pandemic has killed off most of America's kids and teenagers. Some of the survivors develop superpowers, which worries society at large and those with newfound abilities are sent to internment camps.
Our protagonist for at least the first story is 16-year-old Ruby Daly, who develops telekinetic powers and decides to break out of her camp. She ends up on the run with like-minded (and powered) teens who are trying to escape the government's clutches.
Naturally, Fox and producer Shawn Levy's 21 Laps company will be hoping this kicks off a franchise with the earning power of Hunger Games, and this first film has Chad Hodge writing the script.
Stenberg worked on indie movie As You Are and is part of the cast of another YA adaptation, Everything, Everything, which MGM is making right now.