Divergent

1. 4 MARCH 3, 2014
lot of money. “That’s what makes
these such risky endeavors,” says
Bock. If a movie bombs at the box
office, a sequel may not even get
made. When last year’s The Mortal
Instruments: City of Bones flopped,
production on the sequel halted.
Bock says one reason many
adaptations flop is that the studios
rush to release them, not taking
care to make sure that the script,
the cast, the director, and the
look of the film match viewers’
expectations. Other factors can
also contribute to a flop, like
a star’s off-screen scandals or
plain old bad acting.
Divergent, however, seems
to be on track to be the next
big thing. Based on the book by
Veronica Roth, it’s set in a future
in which society is divided into
four factions based on people’s
personalities. Lionsgate, the
studio that’s producing the film,
made faithful movie adaptations
of the Hunger Games series,
which is a good sign, says Bock.
—LINDA BUCHWALD
H
arry Potter, Bella Swan,
and Katniss Everdeen
are all book characters
whose stories have made it big
on the big screen. Last year, eight
movie adaptations of young-adult
books were released—the most of
any year. However, only The Hunger
Games: Catching Fire was a hit.
That’s not stopping studios from
continuing to make these movies.
Five more are scheduled for release
this year, including Divergent, which
comes out this month.
Movies based on young-adult
novels date back to 1939’s A Little
Princess, which is based on the
novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
But they weren’t always the
blockbusters they often are now. “It
all started with Harry Potter,” says
Jeff Bock, an analyst for Exhibitor
Relations, a company that provides
box-office statistics. “The movies
were received with just as much
passion as the books, with lines
around the corner.” However, only
the Twilight and Hunger Games
films have come close to that kind
of success, says Bock.
When a movie studio buys the
rights to a young-adult novel today,
it usually means buying the rights
to an entire series, which takes a
Are your favorite
books always a hit
at the box office?
Divergent
TEENS
TAKE OVER
HOLLYWOOD
Catching Fire
Harry Potter and the
Half-Blood Prince

2. W W W.SCHOLASTIC.COM/MATH 5
1
Grosses for the young-adult
adaptations from 2007 were:
The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising:
$9 million
The Golden Compass: $70 million
Bridge to Terabithia: $82 million
Harry Potter and the Order of the
Phoenix: $292 million
A What are the mean and median?
B Giving the mean as evidence, a
blog says 2007 was a successful year
for young-adult adaptations. Is that
misleading? Why or why not?
2
In 2009, the young-adult
adaptations were:
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood
Prince: $302 million
The Lovely Bones: $44 million
Fantastic Mr. Fox: $21 million
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s
Assistant: $14 million
Race to Witch Mountain:
$67 million
The Twilight Saga: New Moon:
$297 million
A What are the mean and median?
B A movie studio executive
doesn’t want to make a new
adaptation because the median
from 2009 is too low. Is that
misleading? Explain your answer.
3
In 2011, the young-adult
adaptations were:
Harry Potter and the Deathly
Hallows Part 2: $381 million
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn
Part 1: $281 million
Hugo: $74 million
I Am Number Four: $55 million
A What are the mean and median?
B If you wanted to argue that
2011 was a successful year for
young-adult adaptations, which
measure of central tendency would
you use? Explain your answer.
4
As of February, Catching Fire
had grossed $420 million—
the highest-grossing young-adult
adaptation of all time. The other
adaptations in 2013 were:
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters:
$69 million
Ender’s Game: $62 million
The Mortal Instruments: City of
Bones: $31 million
Oz: The Great and Powerful:
$235 million
The Host: $27 million
Beautiful Creatures: $20 million
The Book Thief: $20 million
A What are the mean and median?
B Which measure of central
tendency is most affected by
removing Catching Fire from the
data set?
5
For what type of data set
would the mean be the best
measure of central tendency? For
what type of data set would the
median be better? Explain your
answer on a separate sheet of paper.
5
MORE
QUESTIONS
www.scholastic.com
/math
Measures of central tendency
(mean, median, and mode)
are used to analyze a data
set. Sometimes choosing just
one to support a claim can be
misleading, especially if there
are outliers. An outlier is a data
value that’s either much greater
or much less than the median.
Young-adult book adaptations
are often either hits or flops.
These extremes are often
outliers that can skew data
when describing the success of
a year’s films.
EXAMPLE: What is the best
measure of central tendency to
analyze domestic gross earnings
of the young-adult adaptations
from 2004 below?
● Ella Enchanted: $23 million
● The Princess Diaries 2:
Royal Engagement:
$95 million
● Lemony Snicket’s A Series of
Unfortunate Events:
$119 million
● Harry Potter and the Prisoner
of Azkaban: $250 million
The median is $107 million.
The mean is $121.8 million.
There is no mode.
Here, the mean is misleading
because the Harry Potter film’s
high gross raised the mean.
The other movies made much
less than the mean. The median
is closer to the grosses of the
bulk of the films and is the best
measure of central tendency.
MISLEADING DATA
JAAP BUITENDIJK/©2013 SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. (DIVERGENT); MURRAY CLOSE FOR LIONSGATE FILMS (CATCHING FIRE); JAAP BUITENDIJK/©2008 WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC./HARRY POTTER PUBLISHING RIGHTS J.K.R. (HARRY POTTER)