Author's Saving Throw: Attempted with Insurgent, as noted in that book's bonus materials. One reader's critical comment about Tris seemingly brushing off the deaths of her parents in the first book caught Roth's attention as she was writing the sequel. In response, Roth went to lengths to try and depict Tris' reactions to her trauma as realistically as possible — with... mixed reception from readers.
Fan Community Nicknames: The series has an interesting case; the fans often refer to themselves by whichever faction in the books they identify themselves with (Dauntless, Erudite, Amity, Abnegation, Candor), but sometimes "Factionless" is used as a general term for all of them, based off the name of one of the fansites. The common overall term is "Initiates".
Fandom Life Cycle: The books quickly made their way to Stage 3 after their publication between 2011 and 2013, helped by the success of The Hunger Games, which popularised young adult dystopian fiction. Some dismissed Divergent as a Hunger Games rip-off, but it had plenty of fans and the books were bestsellers, resulting in the books receiving movie adaptations that launched it to Stage 4 in 2014. However, declining interest in YA dystopia and the ill-fated decision to adapt Allegiant into two movies took a toll on the franchise's popularity; Allegiant underperformed at the box office in 2016, which resulted in the final film, Ascendant, going into Development Hell, leaving the movie series unfinished. The franchise as a whole ended up slipping into Stage 6b; while some people have fond memories of the books and/or films from their adolescence, it's often stated that Divergent doesn't hold up as well as similar works like The Hunger Games and so ended up forgotten by most people.
Follow the Leader: Followed the success of The Hunger Games, being a Young AdultDystopia novel with a female lead and an emphasis on romance. Also holds to a similar structure: 16-year old Action Girl protagonist, present-tense first-person narration, love interest (though a surprising lack of a love triangle), and angst. The novels also have covers featuring circular emblems reminiscent of the Mockingjay pin.
Referenced by...: In Dogs Don't Talk, Emily wonders why so many writers today write about dystopias, and gives Divergent as an example.
What Could Have Been: The books were originally going to be written from Four's perspective. In a prequel novel following his transfer to Dauntless, a handful of the original scenes from his POV were included.
Theo James opted not to bulk up too much, feeling a slender and athletic build was more suited for Four.
In The Divergent Series: Allegiant Christina controls her drones with her right hand, when everyone else uses their left. This is due to Zoë Kravitz being left-handed.
Awesome, Dear Boy: How did Shailene Woodley convince her friend Miles Teller to take the role of Peter? By saying he'd get to punch her in the face.
Blooper: In the first film, the scoreboard spells Tris's name as "Triss".
Box Office Bomb: The Divergent Series: Allegiant — Budget, $110 million. Box office, $65,872,818 (domestic), $159,928,683 (worldwide). This resulted in the final film being planned as a TV movie, before getting cancelled completely.
Miles Teller said he only took his role for "business reasons" and that it made him feel "dead inside". He had to do a rather large Verbal Backspace when the sequels were greenlit.
Shailene Woodley hinted that she didn't like the direction The Divergent Series: Insurgent went in, due to the film differing so much from Neil Burger's original vision. She also expressed her distaste for the notion of turning the last film into a Made-for-TV Movie, feeling the franchise deserved "its rightful end".
Zoe Kravitz admitted on Dax Shepard's podcast in 2020 that she doesn't consider her role in the series as her finest work.
"Those films, [with] all due respect, those weren't my favourite films that I've made, and I think as we went on, the story really kinda got lost and nobody really knew what we were doing anymore, and that makes it really hard. ... I'm happy to go wherever [in acting], if I know what we're making and why, but once you lose sight of that, it becomes really hard. ... I think it depends what it is, too, like, when you're running away from something...and it's a million degrees, and you can't see anything (because) it's all CG..."
Creator Cameo: Veronica Roth, the author of the book series, has a cameo during the zipline scene in Divergent; she's the first person to come through the door onto the roof. She was reportedly offered a more prominent appearance and a speaking line, but declined due to shyness.
Pretty much every teen in the series is played by an actor well into their 20s. The only one who's closest to their characters' age is 16-year-old Caleb, who's portrayed by then-19-year-old Ansel Elgort.
18-year-old Four is played by 28-year-old Theo James. Word of God specifically cast the latter due to Ability over Appearance, but it's especially egregious in The Divergent Series: Allegiant where he was now thirty. Eric, who's in Four's generation, also counts, being played by 27-year-old Jai Courtney. They left the two's ages deliberately vague as a result.
16-year-old Tris is played by 23-year-old Shailene Woodley. Keep in mind that she's supposed to be the younger non-twin sister of Caleb (though no more than eleven months, since they partake in the same Aptitude Test), and yet Ms. Woodley is four years older than Mr. Elgort.
Not to mention Tris' fellow 16-year-old colleagues: Al (played by Christian Madsen, who was 22), Christina and Will (Zoë Kravitz and Ben Llyod-Hughes, respectively, who were both 26), and Peter (Miles Teller, who was 28).
The Divergent Series: Insurgent adds more Dawsons into the "16-year-old" lineup: Marlene and Uriah (Suki Waterhouse and Keiynan Lonsdale, respectively, 22) and Lynn (Rosa Salazar, 29).
During the first Training Montage, Peter brags about his shooting accuracy only to get put in his place by Four. The latter also ignores Tris when she asks for shooting advice. This adds a little more meaning to Tris's second Training Montage where Four does offer her advice - and it also explains why she is slightly cold to him when he does.
The sequence involving Edward getting stabbed in the eye. Tris goes to Four afterwards and he pretends to not care, but changes his tune as soon as he knows Eric isn't listening. This emphasises that the Dauntless rules are changing.
Tris tries to comfort Al privately about his fear of being cut. He bluntly tells her "I just hate anyone who's better than me."
The visiting day sequence where Natalie comes to see Tris, telling her to eat some chocolate cake for her. This segues to Max explaining how the fear training will work.
In Insurgent - The Ultimate Behind the Scenes Access feature on the Blu-ray, it's revealed that the scene in which Tris, Four, and the rest of the Dauntless leave the Candor HQ was supposed to be a little longer. In the film, it ends with Tris glancing back at their army of fellow Dauntless descending Candor's front steps; in the behind-the-scenes featurette it's extended slightly, with Tris turning back and exchanging some dialogue with Four.
Tris: "You said you didn't trust your mother. What changed?"
Four: "Everything changed."
In another small featurette detailing the making of Insurgent, a shot of Jeanine walking down a corridor in Erudite headquarters with several guards is shown. This shot is not present in the final film.
Based on some behind-the-scenes photos and featurettes, as well as some noticeable scenes and shots shown in trailers that were absent in the final cut, it's safe to assume that Allegiant has deleted scenes as well.
It appears as though a love scene between Tris and Four in an overgrown house was either cut, or reshot/relocated using CGI to make it atop a skyscraper overlooking Chicago.
Trailer shots which detail the heroes making their way through a canyon (after scaling the wall) are missing entirely.
The riot scenes near the beginning of the film in Factionless appear to have been trimmed. The faction bowls are visible (indicating a scene in which they were destoyed may have been deleted), and several lines from Evelyn are missing.
Evelyn: "People think walls seperate us. But they also protect us. Those people out there kept us in a cage for 200 years. That is not someone I want to engage with!"
Multiple scenes detailing the activities of the Bureau and Providence appear to have been deleted or trimmed. A scene in which David explains that they're shutting down Chicago to Tris in the surveillance pod, is missing from the film. In addition, several lines missing from the film that are shown in the trailers, come from the leaders at Providence questioning the need to continue the Chicago experiment, and inform Tris that they will erase its population. This is bizarre, as it contradicts the theatrical release's reveal that Providence has no control over Chicago, and also clashes with the moment where Tris realises that David plans to erase the population in secret. This smacks of either clever editing by the marketing department intending to mislead the audience, or there's more going on behind the scenes than we know.
Philip: "Is it worth sustaining this population that's determined to destroy themselves?"
David: "They're shutting us down."
Unnamed Providence Leader: "Chicago will be erased."
It also seems as though Johanna, Uriah and the 'Allegiant' had a bigger intended role in the film, as multiple scenes and shots of them (such as Johanna descending stairs inside their hideout, and scenes in their camp during the final battle with Evelyn's soldiers) are cut from the final film. A scene with Christina and Tris talking to Johanna was also deleted.
Christina: This isn't us against us. This is us against people on the other side of that wall.
Disowned Adaptation: Downplayed. In a 2017 interview, Veronica Roth stated that she loved the first film and in general valued much of the process of her books being adapted to film, but also felt that the films strayed from her original story as they went on.
"For the most part, it was a positive experience. As an author, getting to have that happen is huge for your career, but they deviated more from the heart of the story as they went on. I loved the first one, but they got more sci-fi and techy and that wasn't really so much in the spirit of the story."
Dyeing for Your Art: For Divergent, Shailene Woodley had her dark brown hair lightened to blonde. And for the second film she had cut her hair for The Fault in Our Stars and didn't have time to grow it again. As Tris gets an Important Haircut in the books, Shailene opted to cut her hair into a pixie rather than wear a wig to match the book (where Tris only cuts it to chin-length). By the third film, the hair is chin-length.
Enforced Method Acting: Kate Winslet came onto production a little later than everyone else, and kept her distance from the younger actors at first. The result was that she came across as aloof and the cast were intimidated by her.
The series is set in Chicago, and yet half of the main cast are played by actors from somewhere in the British Isles.
The Eaton/Johnson family is made up of Fake Americans. Theo James (Four) is English, while Ray Stevenson (Marcus) is Northern Irish. Naomi Watts (Evelyn) is born in England but raised in Australia.
Other English actors include Kate Winslet (Jeanine), Ben Llyod-Hughes (Will), Suki Waterhouse (Marlene), and Janet McTeer (Edith Prior).
Jai Courtney (Eric) and Keiynan Lonsdale (Uriah) are both Australians.
The Divergent Series: Allegiant adds non-Anglophone actors into the fake American list: the Swedish Bill Skarsgård (Matthew) and the German Nadia Hilker (Nita).
Follow the Leader: The film is one of the many film adaptations of Young Adult books with dystopian settings, spawned from the success of The Hunger Games. The film's rights were first purchased after the success of The Twilight Saga, where a dozen other Young Adult books were put up for adaptation.
Hide Your Pregnancy: Kate Winslet was five months pregnant while shooting, so she was mostly only shot from the waist up. In wider shots, she's usually carrying a folder or iPad in front of her bump.
Irony as She Is Cast: Caleb is the Non-Action Guy and notably can't keep up with Tris and Four while running because he's had no training. His actor Ansel Elgort is a trained dancer and is pretty ripped◊ under the baggy clothes.
The Other Marty: Aaron Eckhart was cast as Andrew, but dropped out at the last minute, and was replaced with Tony Goldwyn.
Orphaned Series: Unlike other cases of Divided for Adaptation, Allegiant did not have both parts filmed simultaneously. The first part underperformed, and thus the final part was never made.
The main villain is being played by Kate Winslet, primarily known for playing romantic leads. She also tends to do a lot of period pieces, so a movie set in a dystopian future seems out of place for her. According to her, she took the role partially because she wanted to do something drastically different.
Promoted Fanboy: Octavia Spencer (Johanna) describes herself as "a huge fangirl of the books" and saw the first film twice in one weekend.
Sleeper Hit: Ever since The Hunger Games came out, other young-adult adaptations flopped, and this was expected to follow suit. Divergent didn't, and proved to be a profitable film with a big $50 million opening and helped strongly boost sales for the book series. It's says a lot when a movie based on one of the most lucrative franchises in history flopped just by going against it.
So My Kids Can Watch: Kate Winslet played Jeannine partially for this reason, joking that it's the one film of hers that her kids won't have to see her naked in. She also joked that her kids became very cool at school when word got out that their mother was Jeannine.
Star-Making Role: This film shot Shailene Woodley to superstardom and put Theo James on the map. Ansel Elgort was also an unknown prior to this film, but his true star-making role had yet to come.
Throw It In!: The sound Peter makes when Tris hits him in their fight? Shailene Woodley actually punched Miles Teller in the throat. She had been reluctant to hit him, so he told her to go as hard as possible.
Trend Killer: The box office underperformance of the third Divergent film, Allegiant, and the eventual cancellation of its planned sequel, Ascendant, struck a one-two blow to major trends in film adaptations of literature in the 2000s and early 2010s:
The film ended the trend of adapting young adult dystopian novels. Attempts to rectify this haven't had much success, with film adaptations of The Darkest Minds, Artemis Fowl, and Chaos Walking (2021) bombing and receiving poor reviews. While Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018) fared much better, it was part of a pre-established franchise rather than an attempt at adapting new material, and even that series was experiencing diminishing returns. Another exception is the 2023 adaptation of The Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which did moderately well at the box office and received generally decent reviews, though this was over seven years after Allegiant's release and it was also assisted by the enduring popularity of and nostalgia for The Hunger Games.
Allegiant also killed the trend in film adaptations of book series of splitting the final book into two movies started by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in 2010/2011, with The Twilight Saga and The Hunger Games adaptations all following suit and The Hobbit adaptation being extended to three films (based on one book). The Divergent series went down the same path, intending to divide Allegiant into Allegiant (2016) and Ascendant (2017). However, after Allegiant performed poorly at the box office, which resulted in Ascendant never being made, The Maze Runner Series' third film, The Death Cure (2018) was not split. Even Movie Multipacks with original or semi-original stories were affected; Avengers: Infinity War Part I dropped the Part I moniker and Part II was renamed to Avengers: Endgame after the release of the former Part I, while Justice League was consolidated into a single movie.
Miles Teller auditioned for the role of Four, but producers thought he was a better fit for Eric. He turned it down, feeling he couldn't be intimidating against Theo James. Shailene Woodley personally persuaded him to take the role of Peter instead. Jeremy Irvine turned down the role of Four because he didn't want to be a Teen Idol.
A love scene was filmed between Tris and Four, but cut to preserve the PG-13 rating. The Insurgent film added one in before Tris leaves the Factionless camp.
Similarly Edward being stabbed in the eye was also filmed, but cut to avoid an R rating. Word of God also says that it interrupted the flow of the scene anyway. Edward was also meant to appear in the remaining films, but his actor dropped out to do another film. As a result the character Edgar played by Jonny Weston was created to fill his role.
Jeannine was meant to be killed in Insurgent by Tris. But the filmmakers didn't like the idea of the protagonist shooting someone in cold blood - so Evelyn shoots her in prison, effectively swapping one villain out for another.
Kate Winslet wanted to return for The Divergent Series: Allegiant and let the filmmakers know she was available to cameo. They ultimately decided against it.
Neil Burger was to direct all the movies. But, overwhelmed by post production commitments to Divergent, he backed out of The Divergent Series: Insurgent (which was greenlit hurriedly after high advance ticket sales).
Similarly, Insurgent and Allegiant director Robert Schwentke was supposed to also close off the franchise by directing Ascendant (a.k.a Allegiant - Part 2). He opted out however, with reports citing that he "needed time with his family". Later reports announced however that (similarly to Burger) he was exhausted with directing the two preceding films back to back, and was also rumored to be having difficulties onset with Shailene Woodley - who was apparently unhappy with the direction he and the writers were taking the franchise in.
Lee Toland Krieger was hired to direct Ascendant after Schwentke's departure. However after the box office failure of Allegiant, and no recent news about the film's apparent TV debut as of August 2020, it's likely that the film is in production limbo and Krieger's finale for the series may never materialize.
, Veronica Roth stated that she loved the first film and in general valued much of the process of her books being adapted to film, but also felt that the films strayed from her original story as they went on."For the most part, it was a positive experience. As an author, getting to have that happen is huge for your career, but they deviated more from the heart of the story as they went on. I loved the first one, but they got more sci-fi and techy and that wasn't really so much in the spirit of the story."
