Understand the Power of The Darkest Minds in YA Adaptation’s First Trailer

Looks like we’ve got another teen drama where adults just don’t understand them and want to control them, except this time, the teens have special powers and the adults actually want to harness and use them. 20th Century Fox, the producers of Stranger Things and Arrival, director Jennifer Yuh Nelson and screenwriter Chad Hodge bring you the newest addition to the young-adult science fiction/dystopian craze, following the Hunger Games and Divergent franchises. Though The Darkest Minds is not rated yet (most likely PG-13), be ready for theaters full of eager seventh and eighth graders, plus maybe a few high schoolers, who are experiencing that horrible rebellious phase of life.

The Darkest Minds’ official synopsis reads:

When teens mysteriously develop powerful new abilities, they are declared a threat by the government and detained. Sixteen-year-old Ruby, one of the most powerful young people anyone has encountered, escapes her camp and joins a group of runaway teens seeking safe haven. Soon this newfound family realizes that, in a world in which the adults in power have betrayed them, running is not enough and they must wage a resistance, using their collective power to take back control of their future.

Though not quite on the same level and depth as The Hunger Games, the film actually stars former Hunger Games alum Amandla Stenberg as the lead and also features Mandy Moore, Gwendolyn Christie, indie breakout star from last year’s Beach Rats Harris Dickinson, and previous Stranger Things star and famous Atlantan actress Catherine Dyer. The film is based on a young adult novel of the same name by Alexandra Bracken, so maybe read that first and then go see the film—that way, you can pick it apart piece by piece and see what all was changed.

Be sure to check out The Darkest Minds’ trailer and poster below. You can catch all the raging teenage hormones in theaters on Aug. 3.