Though many of us in Los Angeles are roasting in the heat, the movie world seems to be on the verge of diving into the fall season. However, the folks at 20th Century Fox are hoping that moviegoers will still feel as if it’s summer movie season and turn out in droves for their new YA franchise, The Maze Runner. Does this property have what it takes to become a smash hit?
There is much in The Maze Runner that would seem to make it destined for success. First of all, it’s a good movie. Having seen the film, I can vouch that it is well made and an enjoyable time at the movies. Moving onto the more “superficial” elements, the cast is full of young up and coming stars and more importantly, the cast is incredibly diverse. This can only help the film in it’s worldwide hopes, especially in Asia as Ki Hong Lee has a crucial role in the film and Dylan O’Brien is on one of the popular TV shows amongst young people. The Maze Runner also made the switch from February to September moving it from a month where quality is often difficult to find and to a month where there aren’t many major films in the way. There is also the fact that this movie has perhaps the biggest marketing push of any film this year with exception of Guardians of the Galaxy and there’s word the film is going to be screened in a new theater configuration that could be the next wave of filmmaking. Also, Variety has reported that the film is headed to a $30 million opening, it’s done better than Divergent opening overseas, and the sequel is already green lit. So this will be super successful, right?
There are certainly many factors in the positive however, there are a few things that give me pause from anointing this movie. For all its diversity, there is only one female character and she doesn’t get much to do. Many of the YA franchises that succeed are four quadrant hits so not having an active woman could hurt. Though this might sound like shade, the movie has no stars, regardless of how ardent Teen Wolf fans love Dylan. This wouldn’t be the biggest issue except when combined with the fact it’s not a worldwide phenomena, I am hard pressed to forget this. More interestingly might be that though September would seem like it gave The Maze Runner a clear victory at the box office, is now complicated by the fact that in the preceding weeks there’s movies catering to the black audience and action fans (The Equalizer), families (The Boxtrolls) and fans of good movies (October = start of Oscar season). Will this affect the film?
If you look at the landscape for YA adaptations though, it can glean out an interesting trend. Let’s take a look at the major young adult franchises’ opening films and when they premiered, the opening weekend, total box office, and number of books sold in the franchise.
–Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: November 16, 2001, $90.2 million ($317M domestic, $657M foreign), 450 million books sold
–The Golden Compass: December 7, 2007, $25 million ($70M domestic, $302M foreign), 15 million books sold
–Twilight: November 21, 2008, $69 million ($192M domestic, $199M foreign), 120 million books sold
–Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief: February 10, 2010, $31 million ($89M domestic, $138M foreign), 15 million books sold
–The Hunger Games: March 23, 2012, $152 million ($408M domestic, $228M foreign), 50 million books sold
–Beautiful Creatures: February 14, 2013, $7 million ($19M domestic, $40M foreign), ??? books sold
–Vampire Academy: February 7, 2014, $3.9 million ($7.7M domestic, $7.6M foreign), ??? books sold
–Divergent: March 21, 2014, $54 million ($151M domestic, $135M foreign),
Looking at this list you can see that while films on this list have been successful, the ones that have truly succeeded are ones that are based on worldwide phenomenons. Twilight in particular is a film that had no stars but with that book audience you can see how it was set up for success. The Maze Runner is not listed on the list of best selling books and therefore I have to wonder about what success it could get. Of the films on this list, the Fox executives might want to look at Divergent as the standard, given that movie didn’t wow at the box office but was still #1 and made $100M+, albeit slowly, and the sequel was announced pre-film coming out.
But the film is coming out in September you say. Well let’s look at September releases:
Top 10 Openings
Top Domestic Gross for Films Released in September
The highest domestic opening for a September release is $42 million and there are only 12 films all time to make over $100 million being released in September. Those are tough stats for a film like The Maze Runner to face even though the budget was reasonable. A $30 million opening will be good but the movie will probably need to get to $100 million to be seen as a success.
It’s certainly possible for The Maze Runner to become a hit, but it’ll need some good audience word of mouth to get there.