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Based on Veronica Roth’s hit book franchise, the first Divergent movie premiered a decade ago and starred Shailene Woodley as a young girl living in a future dystopian Chicago where society is divided into five factions.
While the movies were released during the Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and Twilight eras, the two franchises never had a proper conclusion. After the first chapter, Divergent, the franchise released its two sequels, Insurgent and Allegiant; however, the fourth and final film, Ascendant, never made it to the screens due to Allegiant’s poor box office performance.
The fourth chapter in the Divergent series was meant to conclude the franchise by adapting the second half of Roth’s final book, Allegiant, as a “part two” to the third film. After encountering a group called the Bureau, Tris and her friends discover that their city and its factions were part of a genetic experiment. When they attempt to expose the Bureau, its leader, David, plans to use a memory-erasing serum to restart the experiment. The film ends with Tris revealing the Bureau’s secrets. However, in the book, Tris succeeds in stopping the Bureau but is tragically shot by David in the process.
Back in 2014, Deadline announced that the franchise would split the final book into two films. However, the fourth film faced a bump in the road as director Robert Schwentke stepped down and Leo Toland Kreiger took over. Moreover, the franchise suffered a significant setback when Allegiant performed poorly at the box office. The movie only grossed $179.2 million against a budget of $142 million. Due to the disappointing performance, Lionsgate reconsidered the franchise’s future and explored different formats to continue the story.
Additionally, in 2016, it was announced that the final chapter would be turned into a TV movie instead of a theatrical release. Variety reported that the TV movie would lead to an “additional television series set in the same post-apocalyptic world.”
However, during a throwback interview with Screen Rant, Woodley expressed that she was “not interested” in reprising her role for the new project. She said, “I didn’t sign up to be in a television show. Out of respect to the studio and everyone involved, they may have changed their mind and may be doing something different, but I’m not necessarily interested in a television show.”
Following the final announcement that the series was no longer in development, Roth opened up with People and said, “I mean, breaking things in two was all the rage at the time. That was why that decision was made. But at that point, I think I always felt peace about it just because I knew the movies were taking a different track than the books, and if you change the lead-up, you change the ending. So I kind of felt like at that point … I feel like that third movie … it’s its own thing.”
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