Jennifer Lawrence Photo: CFP

Parents of morose teenagers be warned: The next big trend in films for young adults could make the mood at home even darker.

Vampires, werewolves and boy wizards are out; dystopia is in. Having seen the popularity of The Hunger Games, movie studios are rolling out films that explore darker themes.

Summit Entertainment's Divergent and Ender's Game and Sony Pictures' The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones are all aimed at the lucrative audience of young adults.

The films were front and center at the Comic-Con convention that wrapped up in San Diego on Sunday in the largest gathering of fans of science fiction, fantasy and video game genres. Studios spend big money there to give that key demographic a glimpse of upcoming films, hoping to whip up the kind of fan hype that can be a powerful marketing tool for Hollywood.

The industry's move to dystopia comes after the Harry Potter and Twilight franchises both ended in 2011.

The five Twilight films grossed more than $3 billion at the worldwide box office and set studios on the hunt for the next young adult franchise.

What they found was significantly darker in nature, exploring themes far beyond a teenage love story and wizardry.

Last year's Lions Gate film The Hunger Games, the first film based on author Suzanne Collins' trilogy, features a post-apocalypse society in which a totalitarian government holds an annual Hunger Games, a televised survival game where 24 children must fight to the death until only one remains.

Heroine Katniss, played by Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence, who survives by playing her own rules, quickly becomes a threat to the government and a beacon of hope for an underground uprising.