The film rights to Veronica Roth’s young adult post-apocalyptic book series were snapped up not long after the first entry, “Divergent,” hit store shelves. The franchise seemed like a sure hit, since action-heavy films aimed at teenagers, like “The Hunger Games,” “Harry Potter,” and “Twilight,” were already finding plenty of success. The three movies take place in a dystopian future where humanity is split into five distinct groups, with protagonist Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley) existing outside these classes as a Divergent, prompting her to start an uprising.
The trilogy got off of a rocky start and soon fell apart completely. 2014’s “Divergent” grossed just $288 million and was panned for being too predictable, using tropes that were all too common in the young adult genre. Lionsgate pushed ahead, though, releasing “The Divergent Series: Insurgent” in 2015 to similar box office results and an even worse critical reception. The third and final entry, “The Divergent Series: Allegiant,” was an even bigger disaster, just barely creeping over its production budget of $110 million.
Things got so bad by the time the third movie was released that Woodley claimed the experience almost made her quit acting altogether. Meanwhile, co-star Zoë Kravitz told Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast, “I think as we went on, the story really kinda got lost and nobody really knew what we were doing anymore.” It’s little surprise then, after all of those issues, that a planned fourth film was shelved, leaving the series incomplete.
