Started December 2018

The Sad Story of The Divergent Series

How an initially promising franchise of films imploded from the inside out

By Zac Langridge

Chapter 2: New Talent and Release

Production on Divergent was running smoothly, and the film began post-production after it wrapped filming around July 2013. However, as the end of the year neared, its director found himself in a difficult position. Lionsgate had enough confidence in the first film to greenlight an adaptation of its sequel, Insurgent. It’s release date would be March 2015. Exactly a year after Divergent’s release. With the ball rolling on the planned franchise, Neil Burger would need to consecutively work on post-production for Divergent and pre-production for Insurgent. Burger stated that “originally I was going to do the second one and we were making my directors deal and it was always going to be tough because I was going to be finishing this one at the same time….And then we decided on this one to shoot some additional scenes to better kind of explain the world because we needed that. And once we did that, that was like the straw that broke the camel’s back.” As explained in an article detailing the troubled production of Suicide Squad (2016), it becomes very difficult to push back a tentpole movie’s release date: “....the whole process would have benefited if Ayer, 48, had been given more time to work. But another source closely involved with the film says once it was dated, pushing back the release was not an option….” Slightly mirroring what David Ayer would face with Warner and DC several years later, Burger was facing a daunting problem. “I was like, I can’t be prepping additional shooting on this movie at the same time I’m prepping the next movie….”
In December 2013, it was revealed that Burger had parted ways with helming the Divergent franchise, and while he would stay on as executive producer for the sequels, the directing reigns would have to be passed onto someone else.
Not long later, in February of 2014, it was revealed that Lionsgate had found their new director. Their choice was Robert Schwentke.

Schwentke, who would go on to write and direct the acclaimed WW2 film, Der Hauptmann (2017), was not an obvious choice, nor an expected one. It did however mirror the method Lionsgate used on The Hunger Games franchise. In that situation, original director Gary Ross opted out of directing the three sequels. As a result, Frances Lawrence was hired to direct the following films with great success. Similar to Lawrence, Robert Schwentke is known as a “journeyman” director, with his career flip-flopping between different genres and experimenting with different styles. Amongst his catalogue of movies is several comedies, a romance, several action movies and a thriller. The Divergent Series would be his first, and so far, only attempt at science fiction.
A script had already been written up for Burger’s planned adaptation of Insurgent, penned by Brian Duffield. However with a new director onboard, and with filming for Insurgent scheduled for May 2014, Schwentke brought in screenwriter Akiva Goldsman to rewrite Duffield’s screenplay to fit his new vision and ideas for the sequel. Speaking on their choice of director, producers Wick and Fisher said: “....Robert came in with both a really great gut sense of Tris’ emotional journey, and he was really fascinated by her recovery and triumph from post-traumatic stress, and he also has great visual instincts. We were very stimulated by his ideas….”

German filmmaker Robert Schwentke

Many news outlets were “baffled” at their choice. Schwentke’s most recent film, R.I.P.D (2013) had been the biggest box-office bomb of the previous year and had been near universally panned by critics. His overall track record was also sketchy. While his other projects were financial successes, most of his Hollywood films have been dismissed by reviewers as generic and unremarkable. The choice to bring in Akiva Goldsman as screenwriter was also criticized. He was one of the talents responsible for the reviled Batman and Robin (1997), as well as many, many panned, dismissed or forgotten films. It seemed to be a curiously bad combination of talent for a film that was supposed to be a major tentpole for Lionsgate, and the successor to their third franchise starter that they were banking on.
Regardless, Lionsgate and the two producers seemed happy enough with their choices. The series was now full steam ahead, with Burger adding his finishing touches to Divergent, while Schwentke and Goldsman were scrambling to rewrite Insurgent in a mere several months.

In March of 2014, Divergent was released in theaters with much publicity and fanfare. Many were anticipating it to flop critically and financially, believing it to be too similar in premise and theme to previous YA films such as Hunger Games and Twilight. Trailers hadn’t impressed too many people other than hardcore fans, so many onlookers were preparing for a dud.
So it was a surprise to many people when the film found itself at Number 1 spot on the box-office. On its opening day it grossed $22.8 million in the US, and it’s overall worldwide gross was $288 million, eclipsing its budget and sweeping aside any doubts of a sequel.
The critical reaction was mixed. It could’ve been worse, but it also could’ve been better. While fans of the books and general audiences seemed entertained enough, the film currently rests at a mediocre 41% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Reviews cited its execution as generic and somewhat derivative of other YA properties, an unavoidable criticism when following the heels of two recent franchises distributed by the same studio. However praise was given towards the performances of the cast, as well as its concepts of a divided far-future Chicago, and its action sequences. Some even claimed it to be better than the book itself. Woodley and James, along with the other cast members, were embraced by fans as the definitive onscreen versions of their heroes, while Burger’s vision was praised for being faithful to Roth’s worldbuilding and themes.

Woodley, James, Winslet and Burger at Divergent's UK premiere.

Lucy Fisher summarised who the film was made for. “It’s a surprise how much some of the reviewers don’t seem to appreciate it. It’s well-made and beautifully acted, the cast is fantastic. It’s a happy situation to know for certain that people will want to see movie no matter what, that fans are happy with the movie….” In another interview: “Remember the book become a publishing phenomenon while we were shooting….Where the fans became really useful was to say why, out of all the millions of books, is this book speaking to so many people? We were very respectful of the fact that it was resonating with millions of people….”
Again, here it becomes obvious who the producers are making the movies for. Wick and Fisher clearly love the fanbase and want to satisfy them with the best movies possible. Even the harshest critics of Divergent can’t deny that they and Neil Burger put in the effort to show their respect for Roth’s books, and the result was a box-office success that fans loved for its faithful interpretation of a book they also loved. To me, it seems as though the two producers trusted the fans to be their core audience. If they kept the fans satisfied, they’d keep coming to the films and the series would be a smash hit.
This is important to remember, as it ultimately comes back to bite the Divergent films later on.

In April 2014, a month before the second film was scheduled to start filming, Lionsgate made an announcement. They had made the decision to split the adaptation of the third and final installment of the series, Allegiant, into two parts. Fans and moviegoers reacted to the predictable news with an eye-roll. It was the third time the studio had decided to pull a trick like that on audiences, and there was no disguising the cynicism this time around. The final book in the trilogy, while having more pages than Mockingjay, was considered by many readers to be slow. The fast paced action and character motives of the first two novels was bogged down in the finale, as Tris and her allies explore a completely new society that turns their former world upside down. There was absolutely no reason to split Allegiant into a multipack movie other than trying to squeeze more money out of audiences. And unlike Harry Potter, Twilight or even Hunger Games, audiences saw right through it. In a report, co-chairmen at Lionsgate, Rob Friedman and Patrick Wachsberger said: “Veronica Roth brings her captivating story to a masterful conclusion in ‘Allegiant,’ a rich, action-packed book with material that is ideally suited to two strong and fulfilling movies….The storytelling arc and world of the characters lend themselves perfectly to two films….”
It couldn’t have been a more half-hearted statement if they tried.

Beatrice, Katniss and Thomas - the leads of the trilogy of YA trilogies

Meanwhile, in September 2014, 20th Century Fox released their own competitor to Lionsgate's two franchises. The Maze Runner, featuring a male lead this time around, had an interesting premise similar to Divergent. Amongst its similar themes and tropes of other sci-fi YA adaptations, was a mix of camaraderie and brotherhood, and a bout of gruesome horror and scares. The reviews for the film were generally positive, with many considering it better than other YA attempts in previous years, while still inferior to Hunger Games. This new franchise was now grappling with Divergent, and had already floored it in most critics’ minds.
Later that year, Mockingjay - Part 1 was also released. The penultimate film to The Hunger Games franchise, it was another hit at the box-office. However while it’s reviews were generally positive, something was leaving critics and audiences slightly unsatisfied. The consequences of the unnecessary finale-splitting trend were finally catching up to the studios. To this day, Mockingjay- Part 1 is the lowest rated in the franchise, largely due to its slow pace and its plot, which has little consequence on the greater impact of the story. Many audiences were now starting to realise what the studios were doing. The movie multipack was now a trick to rinse people’s wallets so that studios could gather more profit, whilst the films themselves declined in quality as a consequence of these actions.

It would only be a matter of time.

To be continued...