Because dragging a story out is working so well for The Hobbit films Lionsgate is doing it for the Divergent franchise too! The big difference is that that The Hobbit films are ridding high still on aggressive fans of the original LOTR series, a very successful trilogy of films. Divergent has made money but it’s nowhere near the runaway hit they were looking for similar to The Hunger Games. From the press release:
Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF), a leading global entertainment company, will produce and release Allegiant, starring Shailene Woodley and Theo James and based on the third book in Veronica Roth’s best-selling Divergent trilogy, as two separate films, it was announced today by Lionsgate Motion Picture Group Co-Chairmen Rob Friedman and Patrick Wachsberger. The Company will release a total of four Divergent films on its Summit Entertainment label, with the next film, Insurgent, which begins production next month, slated for release on March 20, 2015 and Allegiant — Parts 1 & 2 scheduled for release on March 18, 2016, and March 24, 2017, respectively.
Lionsgate/Summit is getting to be the defacto studio/distributor of successful young adult female oriented films having great success with The Hunger Games films and The Twilight films. It’s possible that the popularity of the Divergent films could grow after more people have seen this first film either in theaters or on home video but it will certainly never reach the heights of the previously mentioned franchises. With that said it’s world’s beyond all of the other recent attempts at young adult genre films such as the recently released Vampire Academy, a film that failed miserably at the box office.