‘The Maze Runner’ Solves Foreign Box Office

The Maze Runner, the new movie based on James Dashner’s best-selling young adult novel, opens in the United States next weekend, but already the film is doing excellent business in the rest of the world. According to a report in Variety, The Maze Runner opened to $8.3 million in only five markets, which was good enough for first place in each market it opened in.

The overall foreign box office winner was Luc Besson’s Lucy, starring Scarlett Johansson as a woman who taps into the other 90 percent of her brain to become super powered. Audiences overseas took to the two science fiction films; Lucy, which opened in the U.S. earlier this year, made $25 million worldwide, as it finally opened in Russia.

The Maze Runner stars Dylan O’Brien of MTV’s popular cable series Teen Wolf as Thomas, a young man who wakes up one day in captivity and with no memories, and has to contend with vicious monsters and a huge maze-like structure. The film is positioned to be the first of an eventual franchise, as, according to a story previously published on The Inquisitr, a sequel is already in the works. James Dashner has a series of books in the The Maze Runner series and the second book, and subsequent film, will be called The Scorch Trials. Twentieth Century Fox, the studio behind the films, hopes that the new series can match the success of The Hunger Games films and the eventual other chapters in the Divergent franchise.

Studio estimates for the U.S. box office have The Maze Runner bowing with $30 million, which could be close to a record for a September opening and put in into the top ten all time for the first month of fall. In addition to the United States, the film will open in 50 other markets around the world, joining the five markets it is already playing in, on September 19.

The Maze Runner is directed by first-time feature filmmaker Wes Ball. In addition to Dylan O’Brien, the film stars Thomas Brodie-Sangster (HBO’s Game of Thrones) as Newt, Aml Ameen (Red Tails) as Alby, Ki Hong Lee (TV’s Motherlover) as Minho, Blake Cooper (various TV roles) as Chuck, and Kaya Scodelario (Moon, TV’s Skins) as Teresa.

Are you excited to see The Maze Runner? Do you plan to see it opening weekend?

[Image courtesy of Google]