Given terrible reviews ahead of its release yesterday, Lionsgate’s Divergent was a hard movie to predict.While it’s received a ton of buzz, so did Ender’s Game, a similarly-targeted and -marketed film that flamed out at the box office over the summer. Most young adult novel adaptations, in fact, have been disappointing of late, with reliable print franchises like Percy Jackson and The Mortal Instruments underperforming. Like Twilight and Harry Potter, The Hunger Games has proven itself exceptional in a field of competitors, and it was distinctly possible that no matter its good intentions, Divergent would end up just another expensive trainwreck with no hope of a sequel.That’s looking at least somewhat less likely now, as the Shailene Woodley-led drama is expected to generate a little more than $50 million this weekend, easily beating out the #2 movie in the country, Muppets Most Wanted, which is performing lower than expected, presumably due to competition from the weekend’s #3, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, which is continuing to perform well in its third week and is targeted at a similar audience.
Videos by ComicBook.com
