In the early 2000s, dystopian novels experienced a significant evolution known as the “dystopian boom.” Many screen adaptations came from the release of popular dystopian trilogies such as The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Divergent by Veronica Roth, and The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. Among these notable titles lies Delirium by Lauren Oliver, which follows the main character, Lena Haloway, as she discovers the truth about the society she lives in where love is considered a disease. About 3 years after its publication there was talk about creating a screen adaptation for the novel. A trailer and a pilot episode were both released, yet shortly afterward Fox rejected the pilot and it was taken down. Considering the fact that most of these novels from the dystopian boom had screen adaptations, what made this one in particular fail?
The first point to address is the critics. The first book for The Hunger Games was released in 2008 and set the precedent for the rest to follow. Most of these trilogies turned into movies, however, Delirium was set to be a TV show. With The Hunger Games being a huge success, there may have been higher expectations and standards for these screen adaptations. For example, we can see with Divergent and The Maze Runner that, as the movie adaptations continued to be released, the quality and interest declined. The plot of the movies gradually veered away from the plot of the books, which may be another reason why interest declined. We can see this in the pilot episode of Delirium as well.
Another point is that the whole first book was crammed into the pilot episode and it significantly veered from the original plot. Pilot episodes are meant to create interest in the show and entice more people to watch. By cramming every major plot point of the first book into this episode, many important details and scenes were lost or grazed over. Not to mention, while making the first book into one singular episode, there was a lost opportunity to continue the show with even less to film. Additionally, characters that are introduced in later novels were included in this first episode, such as Julian Fineman. Julian’s character was also made out to be somewhat of a creep during interactions with Lena’s best friend, Hana Tate, where none of these interactions existed in any of the books. It felt like there wasn’t much thought put into this adaptation, through the way there was so much content crammed into an hour of a TV show episode, which led to its downfall.