Divergent lead actor Theo James says he probably won’t be returning for the fourth and final movie, Ascendant.

Earlier this year Summit revealed that the final movie, which is supposed to tell the back half of Veronica Roth’s third and final Divergent book Allegiant, is skipping theaters and heading straight to television. This is happening due to sagging box office numbers.

This development is in violation of the cast’s contracts, which state their movies will appear in theaters, so the stars have an out. It’s also in violation of the fandom’s trust — it’s sad to see the series go down in flames like this.

Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller have both signaled that they’d probably not return for the Ascendant TV movie, and now Theo James is doing the same.

“I think it’s a shame that we can’t finish the story,” he told TooFab in a recent interview, “but I think it’s evolving in a place where the actors that have been in the three movies probably won’t be in whatever it evolves to in the future.”

But James, who plays objectively hot character Four, has a nice message for fans: “Thanks for the support.”

The future, if Lionsgate / Summit have their way, is to use the Ascendant TV movie to launch a spinoff series on something like Netflix, Freeform, etc.

Without its leading stars, I have no idea how the studios could possible market this series going forward. No one will want to watch this thing on television, and certainly no one will watch the spinoff series that follows.

If they still really want to use the Divergent #brand, their best bet may be rebooting the entire thing, like what Freeform did with The Mortal Instruments book.