Younger and Wiser: Divergent Revisited

That truth apparently had to be learned the hard way

When I had last taken a magnifying glass to Young Adult films, “Divergent” was the hot new thing with a promising future ahead of it based on a recent box office over performance ensuring a fast tracked development for its subsequent sequels.

The post apocalyptic adventure of Tris and friends in a war torn Chicago divided amongst factions following different philosophical ideologies and serving society in capacities unique to their isolated strengths carried the potential for a decently diverting cautionary tale on classifying people to rigidly into groups rather than celebrating individuality that shone through in glimpses thanks to the subdued direction of Neil Berger and a solid performance by the underrated Shailene Woodley.

Unfortunately, its full potential was snuffed out by an over conformity to and extra emphasis on  YA and blockbuster genre clichés in a manner calculated specifically toward the audience’s lowest common denominator.

Despite “Divergent’s” lack of a definitively fresh take on material that was slowly becoming more and more derided by general moviegoers, the genuine effort and sincerity that went into its filmmaking shouldn’t have been taken for granted, as the series would reveal with the release of “The Divergent Series: Insurgent,” that was pretty much all that the film really had going for it.

With Tris, Four, and their allies on the run and organizing to upend the social structure of their city, the franchise shifts into a noticeably more blockbuster, and ultimately more generic territory.

The more unique aspects of the film’s setting fall to the wayside in favor of pedestrian stunts and special effects that have little to do with the first film’s themes of identity exploration and self perception despite apparently pulling from a somewhat more introspective source material and along with it goes any potential for legitimate growth.

“The Divergent Series: Insurgent” brought in a mere $9 million more than its predecessor despite a higher budget, setting up the dominoes for the downfall of the series which would come to fruition in its sequel.

Released in March 2016, “The Divergent Series: Allegiant” was the intended first part of the “Divergent Series’” 2 part finale with second part titled “The Divergent Series: Ascendant” adapting the second half of Veronica Roth’s novel Allegiant, due for release in 2017.

Unfortunately, once the series begins to tackle the conspiracy that lies beyond the walls of its city, everything gone wrong with it in “Insurgent” becomes doubled down on. The over usage of green screen effects and CGI becomes downright laughable, with some shots and sequences not being up to snuff with higher end content found on the SyFy channel.

Furthermore, it became increasingly evident by this point just how little affection some of the actors involved apparently had for the material as all of the talent, up and coming and veterans alike who have proven their salt in other projects, turn in some of the most bored performances of their entire careers.

With negative reception stacked against it, losing potential new audiences and polarizing fans that were already lukewarm on the development of the franchise, “Allegiant” tanked at the box office, putting plans for “Ascendant” on hold in favor of reworking it into an epilogue/expansion television series as a means of milking whatever profit is left to be had out of the license to little fanfare.

The fall of “Allegiant” is little more than the culmination of cracks in the foundation of the franchise that were there from the start. Once director Robert Schwentke’s glossier and more hollow vision began to take hold in the first sequel, it became increasingly evident that what little the franchise had to contribute to the YA landscape was being neglected in favor of mining profit for a less discerning viewer amongst the demographics lowest common denominator, several aspects of which I touched upon back when I first looked at “Divergent” in 2014.

The question now is not what went wrong in execution so much as why did it cease to be effective when the first film was such a surprise hit? To this point I would posit that the failure of the “Divergent” series is less about a dramatic shift in quality of content and more with a core misunderstanding of its own success.

Despite a marketing campaign that did little to sell its story as anything more than a derivative adolescent escapist fantasy, the first film performed better than anticipated in a release season that is typically seen as a dumping ground before the upcoming summer movie season. Tantalized by the possibility of having a new money making franchise with “Twilight’s” run having ended a year and a half earlier and the conclusion to “The Hunger Games” looming over the horizon, producers and distributors Lionsgate and Summit Entertainment jumped head first into making “The Divergent Series” the next big thing.

What they clearly failed to account for was that despite overperforming and turning a profit, roughly $290 million on a budget of $85 million is still only a modest financial success at best. There was definitely a potential future to be had with the cinematic adaptation of Roth’s creation but getting it to a point of success was not going to be done by blindly throwing money at it.

The substantial increase to the budgets was more or less cancelled out by the subsequent underperformance of the following 2 movies, both of which received poor word of mouth stemming from flaws compounded by a mediocre reception to the first film, whose only advocates were a substantial but ultimately small portion of YA fans, which meant one of 2 things.

In order to succeed, “The Divergent Series” would have needed to either win over general audiences and critics via strong filmmaking that can be enjoyed universally, a la “Harry Potter” or “Hunger Games,” or the studio could cater to its core demographic and foster a cult fanbase by strategically releasing the films away from box office competition while producing installments on more modest budgets.

While the worth of a solid product related to the former option speaks for itself, lets briefly consider the benefits of the less desirable latter.

Had this series’ average production budget per installment stayed within the range of $80 million to $90 million like its first installment rather than hiking it as they did with the sequels, the franchise could have saved over $35 million in production costs alone. With a total budget of $305 million, a box office take under $800 million is not something to be proud of. However, what would those numbers look like if the budget was closer to $270 million or even lower? Furthermore, how much more money would it have garnered were it not sharing slots with high profile animated features and big budget superhero productions?

While the YA audience, typically ranging in age from preteens to mid 20s, is not of insubstantial size, the broader demographic of moviegoers is ultimately where the success of a budding franchise with a hefty price tag hinges upon.

The hubris of “Divergent” came in the form of taking the peculiar phenomenon of its own audience for granted, providing proof of how difficult it is to sell something that is expensive, niche, and of low quality. Its failure provides a lot of learning opportunities, not the least of which is the dangers of splitting your stories up without precedent, which Hollywood in general seems to finally be backing away from.

Franchise films don’t exactly have to be top of the line but they do need to have enough business savvy to win enough of an audience over to carry them and make their way out before getting greedy. Next time, we’ll navigate the maze to discover a certain series that manages to do just that despite a healthy dose of criticism.