Many written books have found their way onto the big screen over the years. Since 2001 however there has been a large boom in the number of adventurous films targeted at the teenage market that stem from these novels. Let’s investigate some of the very best teen film adaptations of the last decade:
3. Hunger Games
Ok so we’re not going chronologically here, well, we are but in reverse! The Hunger Games was at cinemas everywhere recently and enjoyed great takings at the box office. The story revolves around a teenager, Katniss Everdeen. She lives in a district of a country that exists in a post-apocalyptic world. The districts surround the ‘Capitol’, an advanced city that controls the districts and their populations with no mercy, as a punishment for an earlier revolution.
Katniss Everdeen is selected as a ‘tribute’ to the Capitol. A boy and girl from each of the 12 districts are selected as tribute, as a continuing reminder of the quashed revolution. Only one of these 12 will return home after competing in The Hunger Games, a battle with each other to the death in a technologically controlled wilderness arena. The film is well worth a watch if you haven’t got time for the book, and is clued in to be the next big thing amongst teenage movie fans.
2. Twilight
Twilight is a series of 4 teen novels that were published by their author Stephenie Meyer between 2005-2008. Since 2008 the books have been developed and produced into full-length feature films. The series has been a resounding success, with the books selling over 116 million copies as of 2010.
The book can be found in 38 languages and has won numerous literary prizes. The draw of this series of young-adult books is the romance, and unsurprisingly the books are more prominently associated with female readers.
The plot revolves around the character Bella, a teenager who moves to Forks, Washington State, USA. Bella soon finds love in Forks, with Edward Cullen. It turns out that he is actually a Vampire, belonging to a clan of ‘Cullen Vampires’. Undeterred by his supernatural quirks, probably because he drinks only animal blood, Bella continues her romance with Edward. The following series of books covers their love affair and features a host of wonderfully imagined characters and supernatural beings.
1. Harry Potter
I’m almost certain that this one needs very little explanation. The Harry Potter franchise has spent the last 15 years taking the world by storm. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first in the series, was published way back in 1997. I remember at school it was the must-have book amongst everyone in my class.
The popularity of the subsequent books was no different. The series gained a surprising adult following, due in part to the clarity of the writing style employed by J. K. Rowling. All of these factors have contributed to making it the bestselling book series in history, selling 450 million copies by 2011.
The films that have come out of the book series have made the child actors, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson, into world-famous movie stars. The series follows the main teenage period of Harry Potter’s life. Harry is a young wizard caught up in a battle between good and evil; it is Harry’s destiny to battle the evil Lord Voldemort.
After defying death at the tip of Voldemort’s wand when Harry was just a baby, Voldemort believes that Harry is the only person that can stand between him and the establishment of a magical tyranny.
Title Image Courtesy: Beatrice Murch via Wikimedia Commons
