‘The Maze Runner’ Trailer #2 & Poster: Escape the Maze

[Transcendence]

A new trailer for The Maze Runner premiered at the film’s San Diego Comic-Con panel a few days ago, and now the preview has been made available for everyone else to watch, online (see above). Visual effects artist-turned director Wes Ball is adapting James Dashner’s best-selling young adult sci-fi novel for his feature debut, working alongside a youthful cast led by a pair of TV actors in Dylan O’Brien (Teen Wolf) and Kaya Scodelario (Skins, Southcliffe).

 

Maze Runner, unlike other recent hit YA sci-fi books-turned movies such as Hunger Games and Divergent, doesn’t start out by painting a clear vision of a futuristic setting – one that holds up a mirror to modern times, with troubling implication. No, in Dashner’s story we get tossed head-first into the thick of it alongside protagonist Thomas (O’Brien), landing in a mysterious labyrinth – one populated by several male teenagers struggling to stay alive, no less.

 

The second Maze Runner trailer doesn’t spill any more secrets that hadn’t already given away by the first trailer – including, the moment when the eponymous maze welcomes a young woman named Teresa (Scodelario), who knows Thomas. However, this new preview does introduce some vital terminology for those unfamiliar with Dashner’s source material (the maze is “The Glade†and the monsters therein are “Grieversâ€), while also hinting that the secrets of the world will, in time, be unlocked. (Again, those who’ve already read the source book are ahead of the curve, in this regard.)

 

On that note, we also have a new poster for The Maze Runner. Have a look and see what you think, below.

 

 

 

There appear to be some derivative elements inherent to the Maze Runner premise – the Lord of the Flies-esque macho posturing, hero’s journey tropes – but the story’s intriguing premise and world makes it easy to understand why the original book did so well. Now, it remains to be seen whether or not screenwriters Noah Oppenheim (who’s now working on the Divergent franchise), T.S. Nowlin (who did script revisions on the upcoming Fantastic Four reboot), and relative newcomer Gran Pierce Myers were able to effectively translate Dashner’s book into cinema.

 

At Comic-Con, Ball confirmed that development is underway on a film adaptation of the second Maze Runner novel, The Scorch Trials, in anticipation of the first movie performing well enough at the box office to justify a franchise. Again, we shall have to wait and see how that plan turns out; after all, it worked out for Divergent, but getting a head-start on a sequel didn’t save The Mortal Instruments from becoming the latest failed attempt at franchising a YA property.

 

The Maze Runner opens in U.S. theaters on September 19th, 2014.