Summit Entertainment, a Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF) company, announced today that Theo James (Underworld Awakening) will star as "Four" opposite Golden Globe nominated Shailene Woodley in the highly anticipated feature film production Divergent. The futuristic action adventure, based on author Veronica Roth's New York Times best seller, will be directed by Neil Burger (Limitless) from a script by Vanessa Taylor and commences principal photography this April in Chicago.

The original draft of the script was written by Evan Daugherty. Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher are producing the project via their Red Wagon Entertainment banner along with Pouya Shahbazian. Red Wagon's Rachel Shane is executive producing. Summit will release the film theatrically in North America in The Hunger Games slot on Friday, March 21, 2014.

Divergent is a thrilling adventure set in a future world where people are divided into distinct factions based on their personalities, Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley) is warned she is Divergent and will never fit into any one group. When she discovers a conspiracy to destroy all Divergent s, she must find out what makes being Divergent so dangerous before it's too late.

A man with a mysterious past, Four is Tris's intense yet charismatic instructor and one of the leaders of the Dauntless faction.

In a joint statement, Robert Friedman and Patrick Wachsberger, Co-Chairmen of Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, said,

" Theo James is not only an incredibly talented actor, he is also who we envisioned as Four when reading Veronica's novel which has taken the world by storm. As we continue to develop the film, the studio remains committed to providing fans with a movie adaptation that stays as true to the book as possible and we are confident that we have done so with our selection of Shailene Woodley and Theo James in the leading roles."

Said Lionsgate Motion Picture Group's President of Production Erik Feig,

"We took our time to find the right actor to fill the role of Four, and Theo is definitely the perfect fit. Veronica has crafted a truly iconic character in Four and we cannot wait to begin production and bring him and this story to life for millions of fans around the world."

The extremely popular young adult novel Divergent was written by first time author Veronica Roth and has topped the New York Times Best Sellers list ever since being published in May of 2011 by Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins Publishers. The book was written by Roth while she was earning her undergraduate degree at Northwestern University. She followed her first novel with the book Insurgent, which has also made its way to the #1 position on specific New York Times Best Sellers lists. To date, book sales are now over 2.6 million copies for both novels combined, and both titles are HarperCollins most successful e-books ever in regards to sales. The studio acquired the film rights to the novel in early 2011 several months before the book Divergent was published.

Divergent marks another strategic foray for Summit into producing material for young adults, building on Summit and corporate parent Lionsgate's leadership in the young-adult genre. Summit's Twilight franchise has grossed more than $3.3 billion at the worldwide box office, and the first film of Lionsgate's The Hunger Games franchise is the 13th highest-grossing North American release of all time.