'The Hunger Games' Alum Amandla Stenberg Headlining Her Own Dystopian Franchise, 'The Darkest Minds'!

The trailer dropped this week from 20th Century Fox and sets the scene for the teen dystopian thriller set to come out August 3. The film comes six years after the titular novel by Alexandra Bracken was released, becoming the first book in her The Darkest Minds series. For director Jennifer Yuh, who previously helmed Kung Fu Panda 2 and Kung Fu Panda 3, this marks her debut in the live-action film directing world.

In the first few shots of the trailer, we see a world where children are not doing so well. Ruby Daly (played by a veteran of the teen dystopia genre, The Hunger Games's Amandla Stenberg) and Chubs (Skylan Brooks) are shown staring in either horror or wonder at a screen as Ruby’s voice-over ominously calls on people to join them.

Ruby is then shown at a government camp with other kids all dressed in prisoner clothes of varying colors. As her narration continues to talk about how “they” were afraid of “us”, shots of kids casually controlling electricity and levitating tables are shown. Woah...

We later see Ruby with a small group of other children from the camp as they traverse a forest and try to escape attackers. Liam (Harris Dickinson) even throws an entire tree at their attackers all while balancing in the back of van!

The kids seem to battle everything from lies within the group of escapees to Ruby’s waning control over her powers. We even get glimpses of what are sure to be amazing revolution scenes. One clip has Liam using his powers to break down fences, and, later on, Ruby raises a hand towards the other children while in the middle of a football field with paint on her hands and face.

Despite the drama of their movements, there’s still room for romance, as we see when Liam levitates Ruby from across a party to his side for a dance. If this is how romance works in the future when we all have superpowers, I’m down.

The trailer ends with an ominous shot of Ruby taking an entire helicopter down with her powers as it cuts to the title. So far, the film is shaping up to be another interesting vision of a dystopian future. Can’t wait to see all it has in store!

(Image via 20th Century Fox)

- Kalia Kornegay, YH Contributing Writer