Everybody raise your hand if you saw “Allegiant”? Exactly.
The final installment in the “Divergent” franchise, “Ascendant,” will be downgraded to a TV movie in order to launch a spinoff series, Variety first reported.
After “The Divergent Series: Allegiant” opened in March to a dismal $11.9 million and almost a universally negative critical response, Lionsgate is planning to hedge its bets and wrap up the saga on the small screen, ideally with the cast members Shailene Woodley and Theo James intact.
Upon its release, Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers described “Allegiant” as “egregiously padded piffle.”
“Director Robert Schwentke and his trio of writers haven’t given us a single reason to hang around for the last installment, due out next year and laughably called ‘Ascendant’ — ironic, considering the only place the misbegotten series is going is down down down,” he wrote in his scathing review.
The first and second films in the series each pulled in a respective $54.6 million and $52.2 million over their opening weekends, leaving Lionsgate in a precarious position after “Allegiant” failed to deliver at the box office. To make matters worse, the tepid response comes amid a difficult summer season for the company, which saw its big-budget epic “Gods of Egypt” rake in a dismal $14.1 million.
“Ascendant” was supposed to be released June 2017 to battle it out at the box office with “World War Z 2” and a reboot of “The Mummy” with director Lee Toland Krieger at the helm. Krieger will reportedly stick around, but as of now it looks like its main competition might be a repeat episode of “Modern Family.”
According to Variety, the studio has yet to pitch the project or spinoff series to TV networks or streaming services and it’s currently unclear when the series will make its swan song.
Watch the trailer for “Allegiant” below:
Before You Go
