Chloë Grace Moretz and Alex Roe star as Cassie Sullivan and Evan Walker in the cinematic adaptation of Rick Yancey’s “The 5th Wave.”

“The 5th Wave” tells the story of Cassie Sullivan, a teenage girl searching for her younger brother in the wake of a series of devastating alien attacks.

Following “The Hunger Games,” films based on popular teenage novels have become a box office staple. To that end “The 5th Wave” was always going to be compared to “The Maze Runner,” “Divergent” and “The Hunger Games.”

I asked Moretz and Roe what makes “The 5th Wave” different from those other franchises.

“I think that the fact that it is set today; it’s not some dystopian future that you can’t relate to. It’s as if aliens came down tomorrow and tried to invade,” Roe says.

Moretz adds, “it’s more harrowing because it’s not this future thing that might not really happen.”

Moretz says part of the power of the story is that the aliens use natural disasters, things we already fear, to wipe out mankind.

She says she was drawn to the character of Cassie Sullivan because she wasn’t “extraordinary in any way.” She’s a normal girl “thrown into the deep end without any way to get out.”

She hopes that young women will relate to the character and find the courage to overcome the obstacles placed before them.

“The 5th Wave” is in theaters on January 22, 2016.