When Divergent first arrived in theatres, audiences took to its intriguing story, talented and charismatic young cast and exciting action. It wasn’t as strong as some of Hollywood’s better YA franchises, like The Hunger Games, but it laid a solid foundation for the filmmakers to build upon and had fans excited to see where things would go next. Unfortunately, that excitement died down rather quickly.
That’s because the next two instalments, Insurgent and Allegiant were wholly forgettable outings, needlessly convoluting the story and offering up a plot with little depth and too many things that just didn’t add up. The series started to see poor returns at the box office as well and eventually, Lionsgate announced that they wouldn’t be moving ahead with the fourth film, Ascendant. Instead, they’d be taking the property to television and continuing the story there.
That was back in the summer, and since then several cast members have expressed their disinterest in reprising their roles for the show. Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller have already said that they probably won’t be coming back and now, in an exclusive interview with us earlier today to promote his new film Underworld: Blood Wars, Theo James has shed some more light on the situation.
“[Things] are evolving in a way that will probably not [include] the actors from the original. It’s a real shame not to finish the franchise with the last film, but the way it’s evolving now – it’s becoming a very different beast from what we originally started.”
As unfortunate as that is to hear, you can’t really blame James or any of the other cast members. Right now, the Divergent franchise is a sinking ship and given that all of these actors and actresses are becoming pretty big stars, they’re obviously going to want to distance themselves from it as much as they can. How exactly Lionsgate will handle the property from here remains to be seen, but just don’t count on seeing James, Woodley, Teller or anyone else back on board when the TV show eventually premieres.
