The Maze Runner Getting a Sequel

Maze Runner: Scorch Trials, based on the second of James Dashner’s three-book series (four with the 2012 prequel), will hit theaters September 18, 2015, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The film was made fairly inexpensively, for just around $35 million, according to studio estimates. It made almost that much at the domestic box office and more than $80 million worldwide already.

Comparable films have cost much more to make, which has made young adult adaptations something of an all-or-nothing proposition up to this point. The Hunger Games cost $78 million for its first installment, and Divergent cost $85 million. Both of those did solid numbers (spectacular for Hunger Games) and earned sequels right away. Meanwhile, Ender’s Game cost around $110 million to make and opened to about a quarter of that, ultimately earning just $125 million worldwide and being widely regarded as a flop.

Somewhere in the middle falls this summer’s The Giver, which made around $45 million back on a $25 million budget, but didn’t particularly impress anyone along the way.

Rumors have swirled that the $30-$50 million price point might be a way that studios can try to manage their increasingly-expensive blockbusters more effectively. Early rumors were that Warner Bros. was mulling a series of low-cost DC Entertainment movies that could be rolled out as low-risk potential franchises.

It used to be that inexpensive movies being turned around as mainstream hits would be primarily family films and romantic comedies, but the falling cost of respectable special effects have made action and fantasy films in this vein more plausible.