How The Mighty Has Fallen: The Once ASCENDANT Divergent Franchise Descends To TV

Movies In Focus has no interest in Lionsgate’s Divergent franchise – but this is interesting news. It looks like the film series’ final installment, Ascendant, is going to skip the big screen altogether and make its debut on television, an odd decision for a series that was once seen as the studio’s great white hope.

Based on the Young Adult book series by Veronica Roth, the films were seen by Lionsgate as the heir apparent to box office behemoths Twilight and The Hunger Games. Things got off to a decent, if unspectacular start when Divergent banked $150 million ($288 million globally).  Insurgent scored $130 million ($297 million globally) but the third film Allegiant managed just $66 million ($179 million globally).

The major problem was that the studio followed the recent cinematic trend by cutting the final book in the trilogy in half to eek out an extra few hundred million at the box office – that backfired and the Allegiant totally beefed it at the box office.

The new plan is to finish the franchise with TV movie and then continue it on television. The stars Shailene Woodley, Theo James and Ansel Elgort might have different ideas, because they didn’t sign-up for a TV movie.

Lionsgate are keeping quiet at the minute – but all will be revealed soon.

Source: Variety