Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Lionsgate have announced that they’re thinking of releasing the last movie in the Divergent series, Ascendant, on the small screen instead of in cinemas. And with new characters that will allow the company to develop a spin-off TV series.
Now, if you’re a fan of the Divergent series – and if box office returns for Allegiant are any indication, there are fewer of you than when Insurgent was released – this might feel as though Lionsgate have betrayed their initial promise to bring Veronica Roth’s YA novels to the big screen. But while Allegiant was very disappointing due to its downplaying of Tris’s role and revelation that the Big Bad behind everything was a bean counter, you could argue that Lionsgate did themselves no favours by splitting the last novel into two movies.
Which makes their decision to move forward with a TV movie and spin-off series all the more confusing. If audiences are dwindling so badly, and interest in the movie series is waning, on what creative or financial level is it a good idea to develop a TV show from the same material? Lionsgate have been greedy before, and it’s worked, with two-part releases for Twilight: Breaking Dawn and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay being very successful indeed. But clearly their strategy has backfired on them this time. So with this in mind, this week’s question is:
Should companies adapting book trilogies for the big screen adopt a movie-by-movie approach to making them, or should they take the approach used on the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies and make them all at once?
thedullwoodexperiment 
I think we’re at a really interesting avenue in cinema with audiences very clearly showing this summer that sequels and franchises are getting a little worn out! I think it was inevitable that this was going to happen at some point – it wouldn’t surprise me if Maze Runner goes the same way!
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The Maze Runner: The Death Cure has suspended filming to allow star Dylan O’Brien to recover from the injuries he received on set when filming first began. I don’t think anything will change, because the distributors, 20th Century Fox, agreed a new release date – Jan 2018 instead of Feb 2017 – pretty much straight away. However, I do think you’re right about audiences and their reactions to this year’s crop of sequels and franchises. It’s not been a very good year so far, and I don’t think 2017 will be any better.
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I do think its that delay though that will hit the production from a financial perspective – whether people will stay interested for that long remains to be seen, especially for a franchise (a little like divergent) that has struggled drum up the same following as Hunger Games! Sadly the next few years are dominated with superhero movies so sequels will be around for a little while yet lol great blog though man, will definitely keep up with your stuff! Get a good discussion from it š
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