Young adult novels have served as source material for big-budget blockbusters for years. Astronomically profitable franchises like Harry Potter and Twilight have had Hollywood executives sifting through middle school library collections for inspiration, and one of the latest in a string of YA sci-fi dystopian love stories to make the jump from ink to celluloid is the Divergent series. Three films in, however, the franchise is losing steam: the third installment, Allegiant, performed so poorly at the box office that Lionsgate gutted the fourth film’s budget and plans to wrap up the franchise with a TV movie — naturally leaving a little wiggle room for possible small screen spin-offs.
The film industry is no democracy, mind you, and sometimes decisions like this are made without the cast’s input. In fact, sometimes actors don’t even know about such decisions until after they’ve been made and announced on websites such as this one. For Divergent star Shailene Woodley, this was the predicament in which she recently found herself. And she told Screen Rant she’s not exactly thrilled by the prospect of a TV movie.
“Last I heard they were trying to make it into a television show. I didn’t sign up to be in a television show. Out of respect to the studio and everyone in involved, they may have changed their mind and may be doing something different, but I’m not necessarily interested in doing a television show.”
Co-star Miles Teller was equally blindsided by the news, also expressing uncertainty whether he’d want to continue the series on the small screen. Since both Woodley and Teller signed film-specific contracts, neither are bound to appear in any TV continuations.
(Via Screen Rant)
