SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for The Divergent Series: Insurgent. If you haven’t had a chance to see the second film in the franchise yet, you may want to click away to another one of our wonderful articles.
Kate Winslet is unquestionably one of the best actors of her generation, so it’s not exactly hard to understand why a major movie franchise would want to try and keep her around… even after her character had been killed off. Unfortunately, this was the position that the on-going Divergent Series found itself in following the conclusion of The Divergent Series: Insurgent, which featured Winslet’s Jeanine being shot in the head by Naomi Watts’ Evelyn Johnson-Eaton. Despite these events director Robert Schwentke continued to try and invent ideas to keep the actress around, and he actually wound up pitching a rather crazy idea featuring a well-placed Band-Aid.
With The Divergent Series: Allegiant set to arrive in theaters next week, Lionsgate recently hosted a press junket for the film in Los Angeles, CA, and it was during a roundtable interview with producers Lucy Fisher and Douglas Wick that we learned about the director’s odd plan to resurrect Kate Winslet’s Jeanine. The producers explained that everyone involved with the production really loved working with Winslet, and it left them searching for a way to utilize her post-death. Said Wick,
Robert Schwentke loved directing her so much that he came in and very seriously proposed to the group, ‘I have an idea. When we start the next movie, she’ll have a Band-Aid on her head.’ He just loved working with her!
Ultimately it was decided that the Divergent Series would continue on without Kate Winslet, but what’s especially strange about this turn of events is that Winslet herself was very keen on the idea of bringing the character back in some form – but apparently the production of The Divergent Series: Allegiant couldn’t find a way to organically get her into the story. Said Lucy Fisher,
She tried to come back for this movie even though she wasn’t in the books! ‘Can I be like a memory or a sim…’ Nobody wanted to say goodbye to her. She was everybody’s favorite on the set, so literally her agent kept saying, ‘She’s not available in June, but she’s available in May.’ ‘Well, that’s good, but she’s dead! She got a bullet in the head!’
One could make the argument that any movie is lesser for not featuring Kate Winslet, but there is a plus side to The Divergent Series: Allegiant, which is that the cast is still loaded with fantastic talented actresses including Shailene Woodley, Naomi Watts and Zoe Kravitz. You’ll be able to see them back in action next week, as the film arrives in theaters March 18th.
