Netflix almost stepped in to save a $765 million franchise from extinction before it was permanently shelved with one story left to tell

It goes without saying that Netflix cancels an awful lot of original shows and makes an awful lot of original movies that are intended to set up sequels they never get, but the streaming service has an entirely different track record when it comes to reviving properties that were axed elsewhere.

The likes of Lucifer, Manifest, Arrested Development, The Killing, Nimona, and others were picked up by the platform and transformed into worldwide smash hits, but that generosity didn’t extend to the fourth and final installment in The Divergent Series, which never ended up happening at all.

The first three chapters in the YA literary saga combined to earn an impressive $765 million at the box office – and the fact it spawned a trio of features and netted over a quarter of a billion in ticket sales comfortably makes it one of the short-lived craze’s most notable performers – but the second half of final book Allegiant fell apart on screens both big and small before being shelved altogether.

As noted by The Hollywood Reporter, “Netflix broached making Ascendant” before deciding against it, while producer Erik Feig – who was also involved with The Twilight Saga and The Hunger Games concluding as two-parters – admitted “that for the Divergent series, there were additional factors that led to the decision to split it into two. And I don’t know that it served the creative quite as well as it could have.”

In short; it was driven entirely by money, and when it was decided the risk was greater than the reward, the property was simply abandoned 75 percent of the way through.