A BUSY YEAR FOR YOUNG-ADULT MOVIES
As long as there are teenagers, there will be young-adult books and the popular literary genre hasn’t fallen out of favour with Hollywood. The Harry Potter, Twilight and Hunger Games movies, as well as standalones like The Fault in Our Stars, stoked the flames of YA fandoms but also created adaptations that had a broader audience than just kids. On Friday, another novel-to-film series ended with Maze Runner: The Death
Cure, wrapping up a dystopian epic full of teen heroes.
But there are more YA movies and franchises on the way in 2018. Here’s a guide (check your local listings as release dates can change):
Every Day
Angourie Rice stars as a 16-year-old girl who falls in love with a wandering soul who wakes up in a different body and lives a different life daily in the adaptation of David Levithan’s 2012 romance. (In theatres Feb. 23)
A Wrinkle in Time
Director Ava DuVernay takes Madeline L’Engle’s classic 1962 sci-fi novel to the big screen, with Storm Reid as a 13-year-old girl who ventures through time, space and multiple dimensions to save her scientist father (Chris Pine). (March 9)
Love, Simon
In director Greg Berlanti’s adaptation of Becky Albertalli’s 2015 coming-ofage tale Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens
Agenda, Nick Robinson is the closeted gay title character whose high school life is complicated by the potential reveal of a secret online correspondence.
Ready Player One
Steven Spielberg puts his signature touch on author Ernie Cline’s 2011 genre mash-up: There’s plenty of nostalgia for children of the 1980s but a core story for younger audiences that revolves around an Ohio kid (Tye Sheridan) who escapes his dystopian reality by immersing himself in a wondrous virtual one. (March 30)
The House of Tomorrow
Futurism meets rebellious youth in this cinematic take on Peter Bognanni’s 2010 book about a 16-year-old orphan (Asa Butterfield) raised under a dome by his oddball grandma (Ellen Burstyn). He decides to form a punk band with a heart-transplant recipient (Alex Wolff). (April 20)
The Darkest Minds
Alexandra Bracken’s sci-fi book series, in which a mysterious disease kills 98 per cent of the world’s children and leaves the rest with su- perpowers, gets the cinematic touch from director Jennifer Yuh Nelson. Amandla Stenberg stars as a girl who escapes a government camp and joins a group of other youngsters on the lam. (Sept. 14)
Boy Erased
In actor/director Joel Edgerton’s adaptation of Garrard Conley’s memoir, Lucas Hedges stars as the son of a small-town Baptist minister (Russell Crowe).
When he’s outed as gay, he’s forced by his dad and mom (Nicole Kidman) to attend conversion therapy. (Sept. 28)
Mortal Engines
The postapocalyptic world of Philip Reeve’s novels — in which gigantic moving metropolises consume smaller towns for resources — centres on the teaming of a low-class British historian (Robert Sheehan) and a fugitive assassin (Hera Hilmar). (Dec. 14)
Ophelia
Based on the 2006 Lisa Klein YA novel, director Claire McCarthy’s female-empowerment spin on Shakespeare’s Hamlet premiered Monday at Sundance Film Festival. It centres on the title character (Daisy Ridley), her gig as lady-in-waiting for Queen Gertrude (Naomi Watts) and Ophelia’s blossoming love for the infamous Danish prince (George MacKay).