What Could’ve Been: 'The 5th Wave' Movie Series That Never Was

The year is 2016: The Hunger Games series has ended, the Divergent series has taken a turn for the worse, and everywhere you turn, dystopia stories for teenaged audiences have taken over mainstream media. The early-2010s saw the birth of this genre as The Hunger Games books, and later movies, became huge successes at the box office. Yet, just as this genre appeared out of the blue, it quickly fizzled out, and in one last dying gasp, the book series The 5th Wave was adapted into a film in January of 2016. 

The 5th Wave book series, written by Rick Yancey, was first published in 2013 and truly a product of its time, as the early-2010s welcomed yet another story about a young female protagonist and her journey against an apocalyptic enemy. The 5th Wave follows teenager Cassie (full name Cassiopea, in YA dystopia tradition) in the wake of an alien invasion broken into four "waves" which has destroyed most of the planet. Romances with the enemy, unlikely friendships, and a series of flashbacks all lead Cassie and the reader to an iconic plot twist where all is far from what it seems.

The 5th Wave series had every marker of a huge success, which is why it only makes sense that Columbia Pictures adapted it into a film starring some of the biggest actors of that era. Chloë Grace Moretz starred as Cassie, with Nick Robinson as the secondary lead Ben Parish and Tony Revoliri playing Dumbo fresh off his leading role in Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel. The 5th Wave was directed by J Blakeson, who had little experience under his belt when taking on this massive project. 

The interesting thing about The 5th Wave film is that it perfectly captures the time of its conception, both the 2013-ness of the book and the 2016-ness of the film. The themes of young people saving the day came at a time when young people were coming into their own and feeling extraordinarily helpless, yearning for some semblance of control or perhaps a world where the adults died off and the teenagers had their moment in the spotlight. The physical destruction of Earth through EMPs and massive tsunamis echoes an anxiety around global warming that took the U.S. by storm (no pun intended) in the 2010s and led to new generationally specific anxieties. Political tensions are captured by the very heart of the series, the feeling of not being able to trust anyone yet needing to come together to destroy a common enemy bigger than yourself.

Rick Yancey’s book series and its corresponding sequels, which were never adapted to the screen, elaborate on this idea even further, delving headfirst into philosophical conundrums, harsh realities, and blurry half-truths that are far from hand-fed to the reader. One wonders how much of this aspect would have been captured by the film sequels that never were and if The 5th Wave film was too preoccupied in investing in its wide appeal, action sequences, and attractive actors to understand the heart of the story. At the end of the day, we’ll never know, because The 5th Wave film was met with negative reviews and the consequences of its late arrival to a genre that was starting to lose its buzz. 

Criticized for its unoriginality, The 5th Wave is perhaps a needed reminder that not all books make good films or television shows. In a current era where original properties are feared and adaptations and remakes run rampant, it can get lost in the chaos of what makes books so special -- the individuality of their prose and the intimacy of their perspective. One can’t help but feel as if The 5th Wave could have taken the world by storm if it only came out a year or two earlier and was able to bask in the glow of the young adult dystopia era and live out its franchise potential. Whether you blame it on poor timing, a less than impressive budget, or even the source material itself, The 5th Wave was an unsuccessful addition to a genre that was on its way out of the cultural consciousness, and we may never know the life it would have lived if the circumstances were a little bit different. 

Stream The 5th Wave now on Netflix and judge for yourself!