Franchise ‘feels complete’ despite scrapping final film – The Hollywood Reporter

Veronica Roth, author Divergent trilogy, came to terms with the fact that the fourth and final film in the franchise was never made.

After the release of the first two films Divergent (2014) and Insurgent (2015), book three, Loyal, was supposed to be divided into two parts. But the second part, which was originally called Ascendantwas never implemented after the release of the first part in 2016.

In a recent interview with People magazine, Roth said she now agrees with how the series ended.

“I mean, at the time, breaking things in half was the fashion. That’s why this decision was made,” she explained. “But at that point, I think I always felt comfortable about it just because I knew that movies go a different way than books, and if you change the beginning, you change the ending. So at that moment I kind of felt… I feel like that third movie, I don’t know, there’s a lot we could talk about with him. But that’s its own thing.”

She continued, “I feel like it’s over, relatively speaking, because what does that even mean at that point?”

Roth’s sci-fi trilogy, set in the dystopian society of Chicago, follows Tris Pryor (Shailene Woodley), a young woman who learns that she can never fit in with any of the world’s virtue-based factions. She will have to keep her secrets to herself in order to stay alive and prevent the city from falling apart.

The films also star Theo James, Kate Winslet, Jai Courtney, Ashley Judd, Ray Stevenson, Zoe Kravitz, Miles Teller, Tony Goldwyn and Ansel Elgort.

Lionsgate once saw its box office decline Loyalthey decided to cut the budget for the fourth film first, Ascendant, but ultimately abandoned the feature entirely. Lionsgate also considered making a television version Ascendantbut this also never succeeded.

As for Roth’s thoughts on splitting the book into multiple films, she said, “I just feel like it needs to be a big, long book for it to make sense.”

The author’s comments follow. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Director Francis Lawrence recently said he “completely regrets” splitting the final book into two films.

“If there’s a cliffhanger in a TV episode, you’ll have to wait a week or just binge it and then you can see the next episode,” he said. People

. “But making people wait a year, I think it seemed disingenuous, even though it wasn’t. Our intention was not to be insincere.”