Director Neil Burger on bringing Divergent to the screen and stepping off the sequel train.
Rather, he plunges into one specific area of sci-fi: the dystopian young adult melodrama.
Is that an unfair burden to put on a film?
Ad content continues below
Neil Burger: I think its inevitable because its kind of an emerging genre.
And they dont say like well, big copycat movie, you know, superhero movie.
Its an existing genre.
So I understand it.
I feel like this movie is very different.
I mean it does have a female heroine in a future society.
Beyond that she has such a different journey than any of those other stories.
Visually its very different.
Theres a whole psychological aspect to it thats very cool and different.
So I think when people see it theyll understand that.
I mean I think all my movies have been different and I like that.
I cant do everything.
I wouldnt be good at certain things but there are certain things that I am interested in.
Ill pursue them even though theyre 180 degrees from the last movie.
I think the one thing that is connected toLimitlessis what I was talking about before - those fear landscapes.
And its been fun to sort of explore, you know, what that inner psychological landscape is like.
Was it a hard movie to visualize in terms of how to differentiate between the factions?
Well, its a complicated concept for a society.
A lot of movies or stories like1984orBrave New World, theyre about now.
Theyre about, if we continue on this path of society this is where we will end up.
This story isnt really about that.
This story isnt about the future or about futurism even though its set in the future.
Its kind of an artificial construct of a story these five factions for explore human nature I think.
So the idea of five factions isnt necessarily an intuitive idea of the way society might be.
But it is what it is in the story.
And so then the trick as a director was like, okay, how do we set that up?
Or do I speak with my own voice, and if I do, whats the cost of that?
I liked those themes.
I thought they were very real and real world and I wanted to treat them in an honest way.
So I wanted visually the world to be very real as well.
Does using real sets and real locations keep it grounded?
Thats exactly the right word.
Like, you know what?
So I wanted to keep it real which is why I wanted to do it in Chicago.
Youve got some of the most highly touted young actors around in this film.
Shailene and Miles in particular are getting a lot of attention right now.
Can you talk about working with them?
Obviously Im really proud of the movie but Im particularly proud of the casting in the movie.
But the other cast in it are incredible.
Miles Teller is a great actor and I was so pleased that he was willing to do the movie.
Jai Courtney, I think, is kind of a revelation actually.
Hes got such strength in his screen presence thats intense.
Zoe Kravitz is fantastic.
Not to mention Tony Goldwyn and Ashley Judd, you know, theyre amazing.
So it was just a dream for a director.
Youre not doing the second film,Insurgent.
Is that by choice?
They were overlapping because we were going to start shooting in May two months from now.
Im going to pull it off.
And once we did that, that was like the straw that broke the camels back.
So that was it.
It was like, I cant do it.
You built it and then you have to walk away.
It felt sad but on the other hand it had also taken such a long time.
It had been kind of grueling and now its kind of a relief ultimately.
So I felt like, you know what?
And so thats good.
Read ourDivergentreview right here.
Like us onFacebookand follow us onTwitterfor all news updates related to the world of geek.
AndGoogle+, if thats your thing!
