First Look at the Black Betty Gang in 'The Darkest Minds' Movie

This is one dystopian adaptation we’ve had our eyes on for awhile now. But wait no longer, here’s your first look at The Darkest Minds.
EW.com debuted a first look at our Black Betty gang from The Darkest Minds film adaptation (based on the book by Alexandra Bracken) in these four images (see the gallery), which includes Ruby (Amandla Stenberg), Liam (Harrison Dickinson), Chubs (Skylan Brooks), and Zu (Miya Cech).

In case you haven’t read The Darkest Minds (in case what are you waiting for?!), in this dystopian drama 98 percent of the world’s children died off from a plague. The surviving 2 percent emerged from the experience with powers. Powers that make them dangerous. Powers that the government just cannot let roam free. So they round up all the children with these abilities and throw them into concentration camps, where we first meet our protagonist Ruby. Ruby soon escapes and meets up with Liam, Chubs, and Zu.

“She meets this group of kids who completely change her life. They figure out how to survive in this world together,” Stenberg told EW. “It activates an independence and she finds a sense of family. That’s something that she’s wanted so badly, to be close to people.”

These children are classified by color — their level of danger. Green means you’re super smart. Blue means you’re telekinetic. Yellows control electricity. Oranges control people’s minds. And red are fire starters.
And because we’re suckers for a good ship, meet Ruby and Liam.

“Liam is the romantic interest from the book,” Yuh Nelson told EW. “He’s a blue, so Liam can move things around with his mind. Ruby is an orange, where she can basically go into people’s minds.”

When it’s all said and done, this is a story about four incredibly strong young people that are fighting for survival and how they become a family together. It’s about discovering who you are and realizing that there are other people in the world that accept you for who you are. The people that become your family. It’s a thrilling young adult story with a unique dystopian twist.

“Why does it take out kids? What is this thing? How do you cure it?” Yuh Nelson said. “How do you fight it? Do you want to fight it? All these things are, I think, a metaphor in many ways for how kids can feel, or even adults can feel, like outsiders in their own selves. They don’t know how to find a place in the world. How to find a self-acceptance.
“There may be things about themselves that they just don’t feel like they belong,” she added. “.And I think that was one of the great things in the book Despite basically not liking aspects of yourself, you can find people who accept you and people that can actually be a family. To sort of love each other, despite everything.”

The first trailer for The Darkest Minds is set to debut later this week.
The Darkest Minds hits theaters on Aug. 3, 2018.

Are you excited for The Darkest Minds film?