Diminishing box office returns and lowly reviews may have scrawled the writing on the wall early on, but it’s fair to say that Lionsgate surprised just about everyone when it confirmed plans to shift The Divergent Series onto the small-screen for its two-tier finale – including the stars at the heart of the sci-fi franchise, it seems.
Once on course to bring the curtain down on June 9, 2017, Ascendant has now been repackaged into a TV movie, one that will seemingly spawn a spinoff series comprised of 10-t0-13 episodes.
It’s a revised approach that Lionsgate is bullish about, too, after the company’s Kevin Beggs told Variety that there is still “a tremendous fandom,” for The Divergent Series, before outlining plans to spin out “the [final] novel in a season across 10 to 13 episodes and then expanding from there into multiple seasons.”
Beggs then goes on to claim that multiple buyers are reportedly eyeing said TV spinoff, though there’s nothing tangible to report as yet. Besides, considering that leading stars Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller are displaying some hesitation, we’ll believe that one when (and if) we see it.
First up, Teller admitted that he was just as surprised as everyone else once Lionsgate made the news official a fortnight ago, saying, “I’ve talked to nobody. I found out 20 minutes before Variety printed it. When we all signed on for the first one we had every intention of finishing it theatrically,” he said. “We signed on for x amount of movies and you take that all into consideration. We wanted to see that storyline finish. You know, it’s moving into a different format. So who knows?”
Shailene Woodley, meanwhile, displayed similar doubts during an interview with Yahoo at SDCC: “The factors would be, I need to know the details, in which case I know no details.”
We’ll be keeping tabs on The Divergent Series as Lionsgate’s YA series undergoes its dramatic makeover, so be sure to stay tuned.