Divergent series Failure

By Paul Anthony

Have we seen the last of the young adult book to film series end? Let’s go back a few years when Harry Potter the film series started back in 2001, it truly started a trend, midway through Harry Potter came The Twilight saga, which we found to be annoying but we watched them, then came one of my favorites the Hungry Games, which was epic especially part two. Which brings us to my blog topic which The Divergent series and what happen to it?

I will say from my point of view I did enjoy the first film and believed it was good start to this series, I believe of the film series before it, The Divergent series was the smallest of the bunch so it had an uphill battle.  So, seeing this film I believed it would do great. The film had an 85-million-dollar budget and grossed nearly 290 million dollars. With a raising lead star in Shailene Woodley. The next film came out just a year later which was supposed to be the plan, a yearly plan which each film coming out a year later.

Insurgent made close to 300 million with a budget of 110 million, to the naked eye all you see is that the movie made more money than the last but the budget was higher, a 25 million dollar increase with a total gross only improving by 10 million. This isn’t good sign but still they decided to split the third book into two films which the idea has been hit and miss, Hollywood does this for the money, they use a budget for one film and make it into two films and basically double their profit, but fans realize the boring stuff will always be in the first film so why go see it?

The third film Allegiant was released and it had the biggest budget of 142 million and here’s the sad part, the filmed only grossed 179 million. Many blamed the failure on nothing more than the studio trying to stretch it out. The aftermath seems to have frozen this film series, the rumor has been that they want to cut the budget and make it into a TV movie which Woodley said if this is the case then she won’t return. The film was supposed to come this past March but now it’s under TBA and pretty much gone cold.

It’s sad to see a series that had such great promise just falter. Will the fourth film ever be made? I am guessing at this point if we don’t hear something soon, the studio just going to reboot it, which at this part may not be such a bad idea but of course they would need hold off a good while if they decide to take this route and at this point I do not know the film rights current state. If there is any update we will report it as soon as we find it!