Divergent Series: Ascendant to go Straight to TV
Up until recently the Divergent series had turned in a solid, if unspectacular profit but, after this year’s instalment, Allegiant flopped, Lionsgate have decided to turn the final film, known as Ascendant, into a TV movie.
The unconventional plan is to make the TV movie and then use it as a springboard for a spin off TV series set within the same post-apocalyptic world.
With the original plan, which would have seen the final part of Veronica Roth’s trilogy of novels set in a futuristic Chicago where society is divided into factions split into two movies, the first being this year’s Allegiant and then Ascendant, taking aim at a 2017 release with Lee Toland Krieger attached to direct, now thrown in the bin, agents are furiously re-negotiating the casts deals as they were originally for films, not TV movies.
There’s even a chance that some of the cast, which includes Shailene Woodley, Theo James, and Ansel Elgort won’t return for the final instalment which will see a new group of divergent faces join, well, Divergent before taking the lead for the series.
Ascendant was originally scheduled to debut in June 2017, when it would have squared off against the undead combo of World War Z 2 and a reboot of The Mummy. The studio initially planned to start shooting this summer in Atlanta, before Allegiant’s box office performance caused them to dump it all in a big skip.
The only recent franchise to suffer the same fate was The Mortal Instruments saga that die a death on the big screen but is finding its feet on TV. Lionsgate’s Television branch will handle the production which has yet to be shopped around to the networks.
