The CW Is Developing A Very Hunger Games-Like Show Based On Young Adult Novel, The Selection

The huge success of The Hunger Games film adaptation did not go unnoticed. Hollywood is currently doing everything it can to figure out how to replicate the success of that project with their own and that includes scooping up similar young adult book series. In steps Kiera Cass’ The Selection and the CW network. Read on to find out just how similar the two are. 

Amazingly enough, The Selection just hit shelves last month so Cass must be thrilled that a network is already picking up her book. The Selection is the first in a planned trilogy that revolves around America Singer, a young woman living in a future dystopian society in which 35 girls are entered into a lottery/competition to be queen. According to the description on Cass’ official website:

But for America Singer, being Selected is a nightmare. It means turning her back on her secret love with Aspen, who is a caste below her. Leaving her home to enter a fierce competition for a crown she doesn’t want. Living in a palace that is constantly threatened by violent rebel attacks.

Then America meets Prince Maxon. Gradually, she starts to question all the plans she’s made for herself- and realizes that the life she’s always dreamed of may not compare to a future she never imagined.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, CW network president Mark Pedowitz announced The Selection was not picked up for the fall but could land during the summer or as a mid-season replacement.

“We’re very high on it,” he said. “We’re going to go back in fast and redevelop it and see if we can get it up. I’m a big, big fan of the genre, I read all the Hunger Games books; I wander through the young adult dystopian fiction area quite a bit. If you’re not an angel, werewolf or vampire, you’re a female heroine who’s 16 years old who fights in the future dystopian world.”

At least he’s not trying to conceal the fact that that’s why they want the project in the first place. Though Cass told Entertainment Weekly the idea for the book, “was born out of wondering about the “what ifs” of other stories, mainly Esther (from the Bible) and Cinderella.”

Friday Night Lights‘ Aimee Teegarden stars as America in the pilot along with Ethan Peck and Sean Patrick Thomas but the network hasn’t decided if they’ll be recast when they make changes.

Not knowing much about the book, all I can say is if it was between this and Arrow, I’m glad the CW went with Arrow.

(via The Hollywood Reporter)

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Jill Pantozzi

Jill Pantozzi is a pop-culture journalist and host who writes about all things nerdy and beyond! She’s Editor in Chief of the geek girl culture site The Mary Sue (Abrams Media Network), and hosts her own blog “Has Boobs, Reads Comics” (TheNerdyBird.com). She co-hosts the Crazy Sexy Geeks podcast along with superhero historian Alan Kistler, contributed to a book of essays titled “Chicks Read Comics,” (Mad Norwegian Press) and had her first comic book story in the IDW anthology, “Womanthology.” In 2012, she was featured on National Geographic’s "Comic Store Heroes," a documentary on the lives of comic book fans and the following year she was one of many Batman fans profiled in the documentary, "Legends of the Knight."

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