Final 'Divergent' Film Will Be on TV, Not in Theaters

The Divergent series kicked off in grand style back in 2014, with a big-budget debut and hopes to become the next big young-adult film franchise based on a popular series of novels. The franchise aimed to follow in the footsteps of The Hunger Games, and the producers of Divergent quickly announced plans to turn the final book of the series into two films, just like The Hunger Games did, in order to get more mileage out of the box office. Unfortunately, the franchise followed in The Hunger Games' worst footsteps: just like The Hunger Games franchise, the Divergent series saw decreasing box-office earnings with each new sequel. Now Divergent's big plans are getting an adjustment.

Variety reports that the final film in the Divergent franchise, The Divergent Series: Ascendant, will not debut in theaters next year as planned, but instead premiere as a TV movie that will, according to the new plan, transition into a Divergent TV series. It's not clear whether franchise stars Shailene Woodley, Theo James and Ansel Elgort will be involved with the movie, but they will almost certainly not participate in the TV series. Variety's source says that the movie will resolve the story lines involving the franchise's current characters and introduce a new cast for the TV series.

The major change in plans is a symptom of the downturn in interest in YA film franchises. The Hunger Games went out on a disappointing note last year, and other YA franchises such as The Maze Runner have not been able to build an extremely strong box-office record akin to that of the Harry Potter or Twilight series.