Back when fictional young adult dystopias were all the rage, Lionsgate bet heavily on Divergent, assuming that yet another franchise about a gifted youngster smashing conformity would play strongly to millennial audiences.
The first film was very a hit, but interest and box office takings tapered off drastically, to the point where plans for the fourth and final movie were abandoned all together, in hopes that the series might find new life as a TV show.
Shailene Woodley, who plays the films’ heroine Tris, previously indicated that she did not plan on slumming it in a Divergent TV series an or made-for-TV movie, and she has now made that official with a hard pass.
When asked if she planned to return, she flat-out told the publication: “No. I’m not going to be on the television show.”
That’s not to say that she won’t be on any television show. When she made those comments, Woodley was attending the premiere of her prestigey-as-fuck HBO mini-series Big Little Lies.
The show also stars Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman and Laura Dern as suburban mums engaged in suspenseful intrigue of some sort, and to be honest, I’m totally here for that.
It appears that Woodley’s Divergent co-star Miles Teller won’t be returning for the series either, and in an interview last year with Variety, he stressed that he had only signed on for theatrically-released films and not a TV show.
Source: Vanity Fair.
Photo: Kevork Djansezian / Getty.
