Allegiant

A soft plateau to the Divergent film franchise gave way to finishing Ascendant as a TV movie, though stars like Shailene Woodley, Theo James and Miles Teller quickly offered their doubts on participating in a TV wrap-up. Now, Woodley affirms the finality of her distance from the project, despite an upcoming TV role.

Pardon the pun, but Zootopia is a beast. Disney Animation’s new film held on to the number one spot at the box office for the third weekend in a row and made it look easy. Not even Allegiant, the third film in the Divergent series, could topple it. Could the film end up pulling Frozen numbers? Maybe. Possibly. We’ll have to see how strong it stands in the face of a couple of superheroes.

The world of Divergent is a dystopia divided into five distinct factions: Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless, and Erudite — plus those who don’t fit neatly into any one faction, who are known as Divergent.

Robert Schwentke has pulled out of the Divergent franchise before he could begin production on Ascendant. The director has already helmed Insurgent and gotten Allegiant, set for a March 18 release, in the can.

In case you didn’t know (Shailene Woodley only mentions it twice), the next installment of The Divergent Series is heading beyond the wall, to see what lies outside the confines of Chicago. A new trailer for Allegiant promises that, if nothing else, things are going to get real weird, and real CGI-heavy when these kids diverge (get it?!) from their fortified city.

There are only three Divergent books. But there’s going to be four movies. Because when you take a popular series of young-adult novels and turn them into a series of movies, you always split the last one. That’s just the rule. If you don’t, they kick you out of Hollywood.

The Divergent series has never reached the culture-saturating heights of the Hunger Games movies, but it’s done well for itself. Divergent and its awkwardly titled sequel, The Divergent Series: Insurgent, left fans satisfied and made their fare share of cash at the box office. The first trailer for The Divergent Series: Allegiant (ugh, that title) is preaching to the choir. No one put off by the first two films will be won over by this footage and no one who skipped the first two will be able to follow any of this, but this movie doesn’t need your approval. It just needs the approval of the faithful.

Ever since the Harry Potter franchise split up the final story into two films with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 and Part 2, it’s become customary to divide the last part of a YA franchise into two movies — The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, for instance, or Twilight: Breaking Dawn. Divergent is following that path with Allegiant, based on Veronica Roth’s last book in the series, but instead of releasing the films as Allegiant Part 1 and Allegiant Part 2 as previously planned, the two films have now been renamed.

Much like the casting of Philip Seymour Hoffman in a key role for the final installments of The Hunger Games franchise, Lionsgate has cast another older, distinguished actor to play a crucial part in the final parts of the Divergent series. Jeff Daniels has joined the cast of Allegiant – Part 1 and 2 in a fairly important role.

In a move that should surprise approximately no one, the 'Divergent' film franchise will now be four films instead of three, with 'Allegiant,' the third book in Veronica Roth's best-selling series, now being adapted into two films. Just when you thought young-adult dystopic science-fiction stories were on the way out ...