“Divergent” author says film franchise 'feels complete' despite scrapped final movie

Like a member of the Amity faction, Divergent author Veronica Roth has made peace with the fact that the film franchise based on her popular YA book series didn't get a proper ending.

In a new interview with PEOPLE, Roth, 35, said she has long accepted the fourth Divergent movie, Ascendant, never being made. She also lamented the trend of splitting film adaptations of series-ending books into two parts.

"I mean, breaking things in two was all the rage at the time. That was why that decision was made," she said. "But at that point, I think I always felt peace about it just because I knew the movies were taking a different track than the books, and if you change the lead up, you change the ending. So I kind of felt like at that point… I feel like that third movie, I don't know, there's a lot we could talk about with it. But it's its own thing."

She added, "It feels complete to me, relatively speaking, because what does that even mean at that point?"

Summit Entertainment/courtesy Everett Collection Shailene Woodley in 'The Divergent Saga: Allegiant'

Roth broke out as an author with the first Divergent book in 2011, and quickly followed up with the sequels Insurgent and Allegiant. Set in a dystopian Chicago society divided into five factions determined by personality, the sci-fi trilogy follows Tris Prior, a young woman who discovers she will never be able to fit into just one faction.

The first two books were brought to the big screen in 2014 and 2015, with Shailene Woodley playing Tris. Other cast members included Theo James, Miles Teller, Zoë Kravitz, Kate Winslet, and Ansel Elgort.

Taking cues from the Harry Potter, Twilight, and Hunger Games franchises, film studio Lionsgate planned to split Allegiant into two movies — but part 2 never saw the light of day after the first half bombed.

Of breaking up a book into two movies, Roth told PEOPLE, "I just feel like it's got to be a big, long book in order for that to make sense."

Her comments come on the heels of Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence saying he regrets splitting that series' final book, Mockingjay, into two movies.

Lionsgate also explored wrapping up the Divergent series with a TV movie and a spinoff series, but those plans never reached fruition.

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