Director Wes Ball says the Maze Runner film series will be three movies.
In an interview with Digital Spy, Wes Ball shared that his vision for the Maze Runner franchise is to adapt one movie for each book in the trilogy.
In other words, the series won’t follow other YA book to film adaptations and split the final book into two parts.
“I think three is the number; beginning, middle, end, that’s it. Four? I think there’s something off about four. For me, if I have any say in it, there’s three movies basically,” he says.
Presumably the three adaptations are of The Maze Runner, The Scorch Trials, and The Death Cure, the three part series that follows Thomas, Newt, Minho, and Teresa as they uncover the mysteries of the maze and outside world.
Ball cites Star Wars as his go to example, “We’re not going to [split a book in two], no way. I think three movies is the right number. You know, like Star Wars!”
Ball doesn’t elaborate further, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that the franchise itself would have to die after the three movie mark is hit. For those unaware, James Dashner also wrote a prequel to The Maze Runner entitled The Kill Order.
This prequel isn’t centered on the characters listed above, but it does set the scene for future events that come to pass in The Maze Runner.
Furthermore, with the newly announced second prequel The Fever Code, that does involve the original Maze Runner protagonists, there’s no telling which direction Fox may be willing to go.
Speaking of Maze Runner adaptations, The Scorch Trials is gearing up to begin production any day now. We’ve had three large casting announcements over the past month, and Twitter seems to be indicating that the cast will soon be traveling to New Mexico to begin filming.
Plus Rosa Salazar (playing Brenda) shared that she just completed her first read of Dashner’s original novel. Giving it what we believe to be two avocado covered thumbs up!