Lionsgate tried to make young adult novel trilogy into a four-film series that would split the final book into two films.
The first film “Divergent” was a decent success, pulling in $288.9 million at the global box-office off an $88 million budget. The second film “Insurgent” cost a little more at $110 million and pulled in a comparable $297.3 million. Both pulled in poor reviews.
The third film didn't do well either, taking in $179 million on from a budget of $110 million along with poor reviews.
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Due to poor performance of the third film, the fourth and final film (Ascendant) was supposed to be a telemovie and spin-off series – those ideas were then scrapped and the franchise effectively ended.
The author, in a PEOPLE magazine interview, said she she has come to accept the film series is over and explained how she came to terms with it. Here is the author's statement:
“I mean, breaking things in two was all the rage at the time. That was why that decision was made. But at that point, I think I always felt peace about it just because I knew the movies were taking a different track than the books, and if you change the lead up, you change the ending. So I kind of felt like at that point … I feel like that third movie, I don’t know, there’s a lot we could talk about with it. But it’s its own thing. It feels complete to me, relatively speaking, because what does that even mean at that point?”
Source: Darkhorizons