Shailene Woodley saying no to ‘Divergent’ TV series
Shailene Woodley, the star of the first three Divergent films, is distancing herself from the Divergent franchise’s potential future on the small screen after a box office disaster.
In a new interview with Screen Rant, Woodley was asked if she had any updates about whether she would participate in the Ascendant film, which was originally planned as a feature film but recently re-envisioned as a TV movie.
While she didn’t rule it out completely, she didn’t sound eager to make the transition.
“Last I heard they were trying to make it into a television show,” Woodley said. “I didn’t sign up to be in a television show. Out of respect to the studio and everyone involved, they may have changed their mind and may be doing something different, but I’m not necessarily interested in doing a television show.”
“I honestly have no idea what’s going on with Divergent,” Woodley said back in July while promoting the upcoming Edward Snowden drama Snowden at San Diego Comic-Con. “I know as much as you do.”
Based on author Veronica Roth’s New York Times best-seller, The Divergent Series: Allegiant was to be directed by Lee Toland Krieger (Celeste & Jesse Forever, The Age of Adaline).
The first two films, 2014’s Divergent and 2015’s Insurgent, were solid box office performers, but this year’s installment, Allegiant, was a critical and commercial flop. That prompted Lionsgate, the studio behind the films, to consider wrapping the Divergent story up with a TV movie, which would also set up a spin-off series.
Salon reported that “The humbling of Ascendant mirrors the fate of the YA genre as a whole, which has been experiencing diminishing returns in recent years. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone kicked off the craze of adapting young adult books into potential film franchises in 2001 when it debuted to a then-record $90 million, unthinkable at the time. (In 2016, it almost feels quaint.) The genre, however, hit its peak in 2013, when The Hunger Games: Catching Fire took in $424 million in the U.S., the best-ever sum for a film based on a young adult bestseller.
