Wyck Godfrey talks with Collider

Collider talks with producer Wyck Godfrey on set of The Maze Runner.

Here are the highlights:

On the lack of telepathy: 

Really, I’d say that’s the biggest change from the book. We talked to James Dashner about it early on – in that in the book, Teresa and Thomas are all of a sudden hearing each-other’s thoughts. Which, on top of everything else that has happened in the book at that point was like another kind of like ‘Whoa, what is this place?’ It’s not something very visual, that you can see. It’s not something that Wes really loved from the book. So, we’re setting it up so we can carry it on in the second book when it becomes a more prominent feature. We’ve got some visual things we’re doing where those who have read the book and love the book can go ‘Oh, there’s some connection happening.’ We’re just not going to show that. We have so many things in this movie that we have to acclimate the audience to, which is the fact of the existence of the Glade. What is it? Who put us here? Who are we? You know, the idea that they don’t have any memories. They don’t have any understanding of what’s outside the maze. You’ve got the solving of the puzzle of the maze. The grievers, which are this creature that we’ve never seen before. When Teresa comes up  it’s already a mystery because she reveals that she is the last one ever. You know, she says ‘Everything is about to change.’ To add the telepathy on top of that seemed just like one too many things to handle in the 90 minutes we have, or two hours we have to make this movie.  

On minimizing Teresa's coma:

She actually is out when she comes up. She has this brief thing like she does in the book where she pops up and says one thing and then goes back. She’s out for a little bit, and then they go on about their way and there are a few more scenes. Then, when Minho and Thomas are in the map room, all of a sudden the medjacks come in and one of them’s got the knock, the same thing in the book, the knock on the head. Minho and Thomas are like, ‘What is it?’  They’re like, ‘The girl!’ We did something fun in the movie that James didn’t have in the book, we have this huge lookout tree that I think you guys saw. We decided to have the first thing she did when she wakes up, she doesn’t know anything and she’s surrounded by these boys, she bolts and sees this tree and goes up it. It’s like they freed a fox. She’s basically pelting them! She’s throwing stuff at them, and Thomas goes up and has his scene with her. So, that part’s still fairly similar to the book.  

On the ending of the film:

I think it can stand alone, I mean honestly I hope it can. I also hope people think it’s a cliffhanger. The reality is that the central question of the movie is “Who are we and how do we get out? What’s out there?” We answer those questions, we get them out of the maze. There are characters that are lost along the way,  and there’s a mystery of what’s out there at the end of the movie. You do come out of it going, ‘Whoa, what happened to the world?’  You don’t answer that question. You just know that the world is different, and changed. So, that will be the journey of the second film. 

On what makes the series intriguing to him:

To me it’s the thematic stuff that gets me. You know, that sense that adults have fucked up the world and they are constantly treating you as a kid, what you can and can’t do and putting constraints around you. They don’t realize that at the time that they’re doing that to prepare you for the adult world, which is difficult. I just think this series of books really captures that core emotion of ‘I want to figure it out on my own, I don’t want to do exactly what I’m told, but I am passing these kind of obstacles and learning about myself and the world in a more sophisticated way.’ 

Be sure to check out the rest of this great interview at the source!