Though the second film based off of James Dashner’s **Maze Runner **series, The Scorch Trials, is due in cinemas next week, director Wes Ball is already deep into preparation for the third, The Death Cure. And he promises that it’ll be another interesting twist on the series. Be aware of potential mild spoilers lower down the article.
The Scorch Trials, of course, finds Dylan O’Brien’s Thomas, Kaya Scodelario’s Teresa, Thomas Brodie-Sangster’s Newt and the other survivors of the Maze dealing with new challenges on the solar flare-ravaged ruined wasteland that makes up large chunks of Earth, and still unsure how to figure out shady organization W.C.K.D.’s motivations. The third looks like it’ll have its own style. “This next one will be cool because we’re gonna cut maybe a year later,” he Ball told Collider while out doing press for Scorch Trials. “Some things have happened off screen, which is gonna make the movie feel even bigger.
And despite no official word on the matter, it certainly sounds like he’ll be calling the shots. “We’re working on it right now, basically. And we’re actually gonna shoot in February and then release in the next February so it’ll be another tight run. We’re working to make it even better and even cooler, and doing the same thing we did on this last one where it’s a different movie. It’s gonna be a different kind of an engine, a different kind of genre almost and a different sort of colour palette and terrain.”
As for where it’ll shoot, it sounds like a move is on the cards from the New Mexico locales and studios that were home to the first two. “Probably Vancouver. It’s gonna be a very different movie. We’re not gonna be in the same kind of setting anymore. We’re gonna go a little bit more future, do something a little gritty, a little film noir almost.”
**Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials **arrives in the UK on September 10. And despite Ball’s pronouncement of a February release for The Death Cure, the UK date is currently listed as January 27, 2017, so he’d best get cracking.