Hasitha Fernand on the story behind The Maze Runner as it turns 10…
Young Adult literature has been around since the Victorian age with such seminal classics as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Treasure Island and Tom Sawyer paving the way for modern-day efforts like Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and His Dark Materials to gain popularity. The Maze Runner series is yet another property that received acclaim and went on to be adapted into a popular film franchise. This is the story of how its first installment came into being.
The movie was an adaptation of a popular YA novel
The Maze Runner was a Young Adult dystopian novel penned by author James Dashner in 2009. Upon its release the book received much acclaim from both reviewers and authors going on to become a New York Time Bestseller for a whopping 148 weeks. It even won the All Library Association Young Adult Library Services Association Best Fiction for Young Adults Book award in 2011 and a Kirkus Reviews Teen Book of the Year. The effort also became a popular pick of educators teaching middle-aged readers in schools who describe it as a more entertaining and easily readable version of William Golding’s seminal literary work Lord of the Flies. Regardless, it became obvious fairly early on that the IP created by Dashner was valuable in nature and one which certainly deserved a feature film adaptation.
Wes Ball was hired based on an impressive animated short film he crafted
Seeing the potential of The Maze Runner novel Fox purchased the film rights in January 2011 with Gotham Group, Temple Hill Entertainment and TSG Entertainment. At the very outset of development the Lords of Dogtown and Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke was eyed to helm the effort but things didn’t quite pan out. In 2012, Wes Ball was hired to adapt the property based on the strengths of an impressive animated sci-fi short film he had produced, titled “Ruin”. At first the studio execs wanted to make a feature film adaptation of the short itself but they then decided to offer Ball the chance to helm an adaptation of the novel. Following the success of The Maze Runner series the young filmmaker eventually got hired to direct the next chapter of the Planet of the Apes franchise, titled Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes which went on to become another hit for the studio.
Dylan O’Brien’s hair style nearly cost him the lead role
Before his successful stint in Hollywood Dylan O’Brien directed, produced and starred in a series of short comedy skits he released through his personal YouTube channel titled, “moviekidd826”. In between O’Brien even tried his hand in drumming by being part of an independent rock band called Slow Kids at Play. His big break came when he landed one of the main roles in MTV’s Teen Wolf, a small screen series based loosely on the 1985 film. However, the actor’s hairstyle nearly cost him the role of Thomas because director Wes Ball thought it was too “MTV”. During an interview the filmmaker looked back at the experiences saying, “Dylan was actually… I saw him early on, very early on and I overlooked him. It was a big learning experience there because I overlooked him because of his hair. He had Teen Wolf hair and I couldn’t see past that and so we were looking for our Thomas and it’s a tough role to make because he comes in as a boy and he leaves as a man, so it can’t be like this badass action star that comes into this movie.” Ball reconsidered O’Brien following 20th Century Fox’s insistence of his talent and after he’d seen a photo of the actor with gelled hair. The young actor only had four days to read the entire book before production commenced.
A Brit TV show paved the way for Kaya Scodelario’s casting
To say Kaya Scodelario’s star is on the rise would be proverbial understatement. From starring in the last installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean series to stealing scenes in this year’s Guy Ritchie Netflix crime drama The Gentlemen, the talented British actress has shown audiences what she’s capable of time and again. Scodelario’s breakout role was as Effy Stonem in the Brit Teen Comedy series Skins. A mere 14-year-old with no previous acting experience, Scodelario was encouraged by the show’s producers to read for the part and ended up being a series regular later on. Critics praised her performance, and she was even nominated twice for Best Actress at the TV Quick Awards, in 2009 and 2010. Her performance on Skins was what convinced director Wes Ball that she was the right actress to play the role of the headstrong and persevering Teresa.
Outdoor boot camps and snake wrangling in the glades
In order to build up the camaraderie director Wes Ball made the entire cast spend a week participating in survival training and camping out in the glades of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They learned how to build tools and shelters out of their immediate environment and harnessing the resources they had. Since most of production were going to be shot in the glades and considering the safety of the cast and crew, production had to hire snake wranglers to ensure the areas they were filming were snake-free. Prior to the commencement of shooting the wranglers came across 25 venomous snakes with the biggest one being a massive 5-foot rattlesnake.
The Griever designs were inspired by a multitude of nature’s creatures
The Grievers featured in the movie are a group of formidable biomechanical creatures that are found deep within the confines of the labyrinthine maze. In the books they are a nightmarish amalgamation of flesh and metal with their exterior covered in slimy, blubbery flesh. To bring these devilish entities to life Wes Ball hired creature designer Ken Barthelmey who had worked in creature designing in movies like Fantastic Beasts, The Predator, The Tomorrow War and Godzilla vs. Kong. Barthelmey’s inspirations for the Grievers included coconut crabs, caterpillars and piranhas. Wes Ball contributed to the overall creature design by advising Barthelmey to add a mechanized scorpion tail to the Grievers.
Jurassic Park and Terrence Malick were inspirations for the effort
During production director Wes Ball always strived to give audiences something that was more than your average YA actioner. And to achieve this objective he turned to the efforts of Steven Spielberg and Terrence Malick. During an interview, Ball mentioned that Spielberg’s groundbreaking techno-thriller Jurassic Park served as a major stylistic influence for The Maze Runner as he wanted to craft a PG-13 film that didn’t pander to kids. As such, many of the sequences that involved the Grievers were reminiscent of tension filled scenes featured in the Jurassic Park movie. The filmmaker also watched a lot of Terrence Malick to gain some idea of how he could inject a more mature, sophisticated look to the film.
Solid reviews, decent box-office & the start of a franchise
Made on a production budget of $34 million The Maze Runner went on to rake in a more than respectable $348.3 million at the worldwide box-office, making it more financially successful than the first installment of the Divergent series that was released in March of the same year. The effort also received solid reviews from film critics as well with review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes registering a score of 65% based on 170 reviews and the site’s consensus stating, “With strong acting, a solid premise, and a refreshingly dark approach to its dystopian stating, “The Maze Runner stands out from the crowded field of YA sci-fi adventures.” The Seattle Times’s Soren Anderson called the film “vastly superior to the book that inspired it” and gave it a score of 3/4. Isaac Feldberg of We Got This Covered awarded the film 8/10 stars, calling it “dark, dangerous and uncommonly thrilling”, while extolling it as “one of the most engaging YA adaptations to hit theaters in quite some time.”
With the success of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games series studios were clamoring for similar properties to adapt as feature films and therefore, The Maze Runner novels soon transformed to a hot property with massive potential. The immense likability of the leads coupled with the solid reviews and box-office success quickly paved way for the creation of a whole new franchise with both Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials and Maze Runner: The Death Cure being released within a span of four years to a decent box-office return and critic reviews. Regardless of what your opinion is of the Maze Runner franchise the series is a testament to the commitment of the cast and crew who sought to give us an unexpectedly compelling YA adaptation filled with thrills, chills and engaging performances.
Hasitha Fernando is a part-time medical practitioner and full-time cinephile. Follow him on Twitter via @DoctorCinephile for regular updates on the world of entertainment.