Lionsgate-owned Summit Entertainment announced the casting on Friday [15], signalling a potential break-out role for the British actor from The Inbetweeners Movie and Underworld: Awakening.

James joins Shailene Woodley on Neil Burger’s upcoming adaptation of Veronica Roth’s sci-fi bestseller.

Shooting is scheduled to commence in April in Chicago on the story of a deviant who investigates a conspiracy in a society where people are segregated into factions determined by personality.

Vanessa Taylor adapted the Divergent screenplay from an original draft by Evan Daugherty. 

Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher are producing through their Red Wagon Entertainment with Pouya Shahbazian. Red Wagon’s Rachel Shane serves as executive producer. 

Summit acquired film rights to the novel in early 2011 several months before publication and has set a Mar 24 2014 release.