#10: The Divergent Series: Allegiant (2016) — Ascendant
The Divergent franchise provides one of Hollywood’s clearest examples of a studio attempting to divide the final installment of a young-adult series and discovering that audience interest could not support the strategy. Veronica Roth’s final novel, Allegiant, was split into two planned movies, following a model successfully used by franchises including Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games. The first half arrived in 2016 with Shailene Woodley, Theo James, and the principal cast expected to return for the concluding film, Ascendant. Unfortunately, Allegiant experienced a sharp box-office decline compared with the previous movies and received poor reviews. Lionsgate subsequently reconsidered the expensive theatrical finale and explored completing the story as a television movie that could potentially launch a spin-off series. That proposed change created another problem: several principal cast members had signed for theatrical films and expressed little enthusiasm for returning under the new plan.
