The third installment of Veronica Roth’s Divergent trilogy came out in theaters this past weekend. Following the Holly
wood trend that was started by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Allegiant has been split into two movies. Divergent was first published as a book in 2011, released as a film in 2014, and Part Two: Ascendant comes out in 2017. Many have wondered if this is really necessary, since Allegiant does not have a clear cut halfway point. Without going into extreme detail, Part One finishes with Tris and Four informing the city of the truth. There are several rumors that Ascendant will not follow the book’s true ending either. Combined with poor reviews, this makes me wonder if the two part finale trend will continue for much longer.
The seventh Harry Potter book does have a lot going on in it, so few were upset about it being split into two pieces. For the first time in the movie franchise, J.K. Rowling even joined the production team and was more directly involved with those two final films than ever before. This decision was made in order to preserve book’s details and tell the story correctly. Considering how many book-to-movie translations go horribly wrong, that was an idea that people could get behind.
But it did not stop there. Twilight: Breaking Dawn was split into two films. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay was dragged across two years, only to have the release of Part 2 overshadowed by the excitement for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Perhaps one of the most drawn out was The Hobbit, a slim children’s novel that was turned it into a trilogy series. The problem is that film success is measured by ticket sales rather than artistic quality. Declining ticket sales for Mockingjay and Allegiant could be an indicator that Hollywood might stop splitting final installments into multiple movies. The Death Cure, the final book in The Maze Runner trilogy, is scheduled to be contained in just one movie too, so maybe we really can begin to put the Part One/Part Two phase in the past.