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Disney Finds a Director for Matched; Its Dystopian, Female-Led, Love Triangle Movie

by Susana Polo | 4:16 pm, September 5th, 2012


Matched is a 2010 young adult novel by Ally Condie, featuring a dystopian society where all media and art is regulated, the state determines the day you will die, and your perfect mate is chosen by algorithm when you turn seventeen. It stars Cassia Reyes, two guys her age, and the slow realization that things are not as they seem and that everyone is in grave danger.

There will come a day when I’m so tired of female-led, love-triangle-having, darkly-themed YA fantasy and science fiction that it makes me care less about how Hollywood accepting them as a money-making trend means that we get to see more women as leads in genre films. But it is not this day.

David Slade, of Twilight: Eclipse, 30 Days of Night and Hard Candy, has been tapped by Disney to helm the adaptation of the first book in the Matched trilogy. The script is already written, thanks to Michelle and Kieran Mulroney, whose Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows opened last year.

In Matched, Cassia Reyes’ algorithm pairs her with both of her close male friends before correct itself to exclude the one who is related to a criminal. A government official tells her it was simply a mistake, but it becomes the first crack in the illusion in which Cassia, her family, and her friends live. The second book in the series, Crossed, concerns her adventure trying to track down one of those friends in the wastes he was banished to, and the third Reached, has yet to be published.

I haven’t read the books, and to be honest, the details of the setting, as I’ve seen in summary, seem too familiar to really grab my attention. But as I said above: I’m all in favor of women getting movies made out of the stories they’ve written about women.

(via The Hollywood Reporter.)

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  • http://twitter.com/kitsparrow Kit Maxel

    When do we get Uglies movies?

  • http://twitter.com/sarasakana Sara Sakana

    Huh. Haven’t read the books, but the premise seems a little skeevy to me. The fact that people connected with the Twilight series are jumping to work on this doesn’t give me the warm fuzzies either.

    Also, gentle reminder that the Twilight series (and its portrayal of an abusive relationship as “true luv” and something girls should want) was also written by a woman.

  • http://twitter.com/annalynnmartino Anna Lynn Martino

    You said it! I wonder if that’s going to happen…you think it would. It was so popular before Hunger Games…

  • http://twitter.com/annalynnmartino Anna Lynn Martino

    I read Matched but not Crossed. I think the Cassie is a great character but it is another love triangle in a dystopian setting. Way better than Twilight! (ugh)

  • http://twitter.com/Its_Rocketman Jessica Claire

    The summary was a little rough…Ky, the son of rebels, was not one of Cassia’s close friends, only a minor acquaintance she had a few interactions with (think Katniss and Peeta). Xander, her “true” match, was her best friend. The rest sounds good though. I’m a fan of these books, the first is great while the second is a bit slow. I had no idea a film was in the works!

  • Anonymous

    I read and enjoyed Matched — not my favorite and I had some issues with a couple elements, but I liked it overall. Crossed, however, was incredibly boring. The whole book could (and should have been) distilled into three chapters of a bigger novel.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000500177841 Rachel Banzhaf

    Not sure about the movie, but the book sounds mildly interesting. I might look it up sometime.

  • http://wrongsirwrong.blogspot.com/ Magic Xylophone

    Wait… David Slade directed Hard Candy? I… I think I might have to actually watch Eclipse. That man directs like a mofo.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003037095323 Jerilyn Nighy

    “all media and art is regulated” Is the regulation that artists are only ever allowed to churn out endless mash-ups of mainstream genre media?

  • Rarity

    I didn’t like Matched (haven’t read the others) very much, mostly due to the fact that there are so many YA books I was comparing it to. Hunger Games, Uglies, Divergent, The Maze Runner…

    Seriously, it seemed like the only reason it was written was to jump onto the YA dystopian bandwagon that so many other new authors are doing. The plot is bland and unoriginal and so was the world that the books took place in was too.

  • Anonymous

    Meh. Hollywood. I just want to see good movies made, regardless of gender of whoever writes them. Good movies have well written characters, and fleshed-out characters prevent (or at least minimize) stereotypes, including (but not limited to) sexist ones. Mere presence of women in film is hardly going to win me over.

  • JW

    There was one planned ages ago, but I didn’t have terribly high hopes for it. It was going to be made by the same people who made Eragon. *shudder*

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