In case you haven’t seen the trailers or heard the gossip, the movie adaptation of The Giver will be premiering August 15th, starring big names such as Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep and even Taylor Swift. Here are some facts that you need to know before you see the movie:
Two changes between the book and movie are the characters’ ages and the amount of action in the film. While the novel’s protagonists are 12 years old, the characters in the movie are closer to 16.
Jeff Bridges bought the rights to the book 18 years ago, and intended for his father to play the role of the Giver; sadly, he passed away and Jeff stepped up to take on the role himself.
The author of the book, Lois Lowry, doesn’t have an official explanation for how the world became the way it is in the book; it is just assumed that some cataclysmic event happened that changed society.
In the book the marker for people with gifts, such as Jonas’s ability to “see beyond,” his pale eyes, but that was changed for the movie.
Lois Lowry was inspired to write The Giver by her father’s loss of memory as he aged.