The ratio of franchises adapted from YA fantasy novels that succeeded compared to those that failed is skewed in favor of the latter to say the least, but The Divergent Series nonetheless holds a unique place in the history books for the manner in which it imploded.
The first three installments were all fairly successful at the box office, earning a combined haul of $765 million to comfortably position it among the most lucrative examples of the craze that spat out one-and-done bombs like it was nobody’s business, only for the franchise to careen spectacularly off the rails when it came time to build towards the grand finale.
The second half of Allegiant was given the green light and poised to pick up from where its predecessor left off, only for the project to be canceled on a cliffhanger. Lionsgate then tried to reinvent it as a small screen event series that would round out the saga, but once Shailene Woodley and the rest of the key cast made it clear they weren’t interested in taking their talents to television to tie things off, Divergent was done.
Despite having 75 percent of its narrative told before it ended up being scrapped twice over, creator and author Veronica Roth admitted to People that she’s fine with how things turned out.
“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, I don’t know — there’s a lot we could talk about with it. But it’s its own thing. It feels complete to me, relatively speaking, because what does that even mean at that point? I just feel like it’s got to be a big, long book in order for that to make sense.”
Even plans for an episodic reboot fell through, so Roth might just have to spend the rest of her days making peace with the fact The Divergent Series made it three quarters of the way through before disappearing in a cloud of smoke.