Final Divergent Film to See Budget Slashed by Lionsgate
Allegiant is seeing a seriously average score at the box office, and in the wake of that Lionsgate's faith in the franchise is waning. Sources are now saying that the studio will cut the budget of the fourth and final film in the series, which is due to begin production this Summer.
"The budget for the next one will be reduced," said a well-placed production source. "They haven't said by how much." It is, however, expected to be several millions of dollars being cut from the sci-fi film's budget.
Lionsgate were searching for a nice companion and as of now eventual successor to The Hunger Games, which itself followed on from Twilight. In the end, the studio seems to have boxed themselves in with a very narrow vision of the kind of blockbuster franchises they want to be putting out.
“There’s never been quite a YA [young adult] drop off like this,” says box office analyst Jeff Bock. “Wait. Yes, there has. Hunger Games suffered similar results from sequel to threequel, as the North American debut of Mockingjay - Part 1 was off nearly $35 million. That didn’t hurt Lionsgate too much, however, as Hunger Games over-performed from the get-go — not the case for Divergent.”
This suggests that maybe the YA film is starting to lose its novelty, and fans are going to demand more than the rinse and repeat of recent releases. These films were successful on their gimmick, but now they need to actually reach a certain quality to fill seats.
Source: THR
