If you’re a fan of the Divergent book series and The Divergent Series movies based on those books, there’s a bit of bad news being reported.
Instead of releasing the fourth and final movie, The Divergent Series: Ascendant, as was originally planned in June of next year, Lionsgate has instead decided to move the final chapter directly to television. Part of this unexpected decision is so they can set up a future spinoff TV series.
According to the report, negotiations are still in the early stages. If all goes according to plan, Lionsgate will wrap up the storylines of the movie characters in this TV movie, while also introducing new characters who will then be part of the spinoff TV series. But that’s just if things go well. Again, negotiations are early. It’s still not clear if the stars of the movie, such as Shailene Woodley, Theo James, and Ansel Elgort, will even be returning for this surprise twist shift to television. No deals have been made yet that are known about. Lionsgate also hasn’t yet pitched the spinoff TV series to anyone, so it’s unknown where it might air.
The original Divergent movie cost $85 million and made almost $289 million worldwide. Not great, but decent considering its budget. Its sequel The Divergent Series: Insurgent cost $110 million and made a little over $297 million worldwide. Not much different. The most recent release, Allegiant, is said to also have cost $110 million but only made $179 million worldwide. That’s around $765 million total for the three movies. Their previous young adult book series adaptation, The Hunger Games, spanned four movies and scored almost $3 BILLION total worldwide. So you can see where Lionsgate got nervous about paying up the $100+ million for a final installment.
Ascendant was originally scheduled to be released on June 9, 2017. If it remained in that slot, it would have faced off against World War Z 2 and the first movie in Universal’s shared monster universe, The Mummy.
You can read more on The Divergent Series right here.
[Source: Variety]
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