Divergent Tops $250M in Worldwide Box Office. Now Lionsgate’s Highest-Grossing Franchise Outside Twilight and The Hunger Games

Great news for Divergent fans. Lionsgate has just published the below press release which confirms that Divergent has broken the $250 milion mark at the worldwide box office and is now considered the highest-grossing domestic box office grosser outside The Hunger Games and Twilight franchises:

SANTA MONICA, Calif. and VANCOUVER, May 5, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — The first installment of the action-adventure franchise Divergent, released on Lionsgate’s (NYSE: LGF) Summit Entertainment label, has broken the $250 million mark at the worldwide box office, the Company announced today. The film has already grossed $142.7 million at the domestic box office and another $108.3 million at the international box office where a strong opening in Spain led it to a $9.8 million weekend from 75 markets. Remaining territories still to open include Japan (July 12) and China.

Divergent is now the Company’s highest-grossing domestic box office grosser outside The Hunger Games and Twilight franchises.

“Our Divergent franchise is off to a great start, and the film’s strong holds domestically and internationally are a good indication that momentum is continuing to build,” said Lionsgate Motion Picture Group Co-Chairs Rob Friedman and Patrick Wachsberger. “We’re beginning production on the second installment, Insurgent, this month, and we expect the franchise to have tremendous and growing resonance for global audiences in the years to come.”

The Company noted that book sales of the Divergent trilogy have surged to 21 million copies worldwide, up from 17 million at the time of the film’s March 21 release. Summit is slated to release Insurgent on March 20, 2015, and Allegiant Parts 1 & 2 on March 18, 2016, and March 24, 2017, respectively.

Divergent stars Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Academy Award winner Kate Winslet and Ashley Judd and is directed by Neil Burger. Based on the smash best-selling book series by Veronica Roth, the Divergent franchise is produced by Lucy Fisher and Douglas Wick of Red Wagon Entertainment and Pouya Shabazian.

ABOUT LIONSGATE

Lionsgate is a leading global entertainment company with a strong and diversified presence in motion picture production and distribution, television programming and syndication, home entertainment, family entertainment, digital distribution, new channel platforms and international distribution and sales. Lionsgate currently has 34 television shows on 22 networks spanning its primetime production, distribution and syndication businesses, including such critically-acclaimed hits as the multiple Emmy Award-winning Mad Men and Nurse Jackie, the comedy Anger Management, the network series Nashville, the syndication success The Wendy Williams Show and the critically-acclaimed series Orange is the New Black.

Its feature film business has been fueled by such recent successes as the blockbuster first two installments of The Hunger Games franchise, The Hunger Games and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the first installment of the Divergent franchise, Now You See Me, Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain, Warm Bodies, The Expendables 2, The Possession, Sinister, Roadside Attractions’ Mud and Pantelion Films’ breakout hit Instructions Not Included, the highest-grossing Spanish-language film ever released in the U.S.

Lionsgate’s home entertainment business is an industry leader in box office-to-DVD and box office-to-VOD revenue conversion rate. Lionsgate handles a prestigious and prolific library of approximately 15,000 motion picture and television titles that is an important source of recurring revenue and serves as the foundation for the growth of the Company’s core businesses. The Lionsgate and Summit brands remain synonymous with original, daring, quality entertainment in markets around the world.

Source: Wall Street Journal