ComicCon 2015 Master Post

Dylan O'Brien, Rosa Salazar, Giancarlo Esposito, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, and Ki Hong Lee with director Wes Ball and author James Dashner appeared at ComicCon 2015 for The Scorch Trials promo! Post will be updated!

More after the cut!

Scorch Trials Cast at Comic-Con and Nerd HQ

Headed to SDCC this year? The Scorch Trials cast and creatives will be there!

Here's what we know so far:

Thursday

Teen Wolf Panel Featuring Dylan

MTV's Teen Wolf panel will be from 5-6pm PT in Ballroom 20! Dylan will be featured on the panel along with his cast-mates.


Special Gaslamp TMR Screening and Q&A with Wes and James

ClevverTV is hosting a special screening of TMR followed by an exclusive sneak peek at The Scorch Trials Thursday July 9th at 7pm at the Gaslamp Theatre. Director Wes Ball and author James Dashner will be there post-screening to do a Q&A. Tweet with the hashtags #ScorchTrials and #ScorchSneakPeek.

Friday

SDCC Signing with James Dashner

 James tweeted that he has a SDCC signing Friday at 3:30pm PST, Table AA09. Be sure to check that our if you're attending!

Saturday

SDCC Hall H Panel

James Dashner tweeted that the cast and creatives will be returning to Hall H for a panel on Saturday July 11th starting at 5:45pm PST. This will presumably be during 20th Century Fox's time frame on Saturday, so The Scorch Trials panel may not be up exactly at that time.

Nerd HQ Panel

The Zachary Levi-hosted charity and fan event will be hosting the cast and creatives for a third year in a row. According to the official Nerd HQ schedule Dylan O'Brien, Ki Hong Lee, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Rosa Salazar, Giancarlo Esposito, director Wes Ball, and author James Dashner will be live with Conversations for a Cause starting at 7pm PST. Nerd HQ panels are livestreamed on IGN.



Stop by the Random House Kids booth #1515 for tattoos, chapter samples and books from James Dashner and more RHC authors!

More to come!

James and Wes talk with Jake Roper

While at ComicCon, Jake Roper talked with James Dashner and Wes Ball about The Maze Runner, adaptation process, ComicCon, and most important of all tacos.

Bonus Video: Jake talks Mazes.

Will and Kaya talk with Fangirlish

While at Comic Con Fangirlish had the opportunity to interview Kaya and Will about all things The Maze Runner.

Here are the highlights:

Is it better or worse to walk into a movie that also has a book adaptation with an existing fanbase? Do you feel like you have been received well on social media or is that difficult to listen to the criticisms? 

Kaya: I think we’ve been incredibly lucky. I think Maze Runner fans probably… of all the stories I’ve heard and I have heard a lot of them… the Maze Runner fans seems to be the nicest families out there. And they have been so supportive. I haven’t seen a single negative comment and they’re really supportive of like other films, and other franchises. And they all want to talk about it and get together and discuss it. And they’ve been like overwhelmingly nice. I’m so scared that one day I’m going to go into a room and it’s going to be all the assholes they talked about.

Will: Yeah… yeah… Maze Runner fans… Right. I think it’s because the collective online voice of the Gladers and the Maze Runner fan labels has been loud and really encouraging. That’s been the case from day one. As soon as we all got cast, they were following us. They were you know sending out encouraging words and personal messages.

Kaya: And like Fanart! And Videos.

Will: Unbelievable! And we would contact them like during filming to kind of keep them up-to-date and stuff with a couple of video chats and things and saying what we’re going to do and before the release of the movie maybe we’ll do another one; but it wasn’t something that producers asked us to do. We really found ourselves wanting to make contact with them because they were so cool to us. I realize that a number of big franchise films have huge support, but that happened so dramatically, so early on that it is a very special relationship.

Kaya: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. It is special.

Will on what types of roles he likes to play best.

Uhm, I actually don’t mind. I was saying just early… the common theme for me, the characters I like playing is that they kind of have an element to their personality that I have a respect for. So every one of them might have elements I don’t understand to some degree nor do I feel like I agree with Gally entirely, there are elements of his persona and elements of what he stands for that I can kind of appreciate. That made him accessible to me as an actor. I loved playing someone who you know brought conflict and created friction. It was fun. Some of my favorite scenes were when I was being kind of a complete asshole. It was like, I can’t lie… it was fun to do. I don’t know why. I can’t explain that. You don’t strive to be an asshole in every day life. I imagine people don’t do that. Some people will fool you. But uhm, I uh… I really enjoyed it. I thought it was like really good fun. I loved to play another baddie.

What do you think sets Maze Runner apart from many of the other similar big franchises that are hitting the theaters in the last couple of years.

Kaya: For me, it’s just from the second it starts you’re on the journey with the character. That’s what’s great if you don’t know anything about the books. If you’ve never read it, you can still go watch it. You discover the story from the eyes of Thomas, through the eyes of Dylan’s character. You know you go on the journey with him. Nothing’s explained. It doesn’t start with a paragraph of this is what’s happened. It’s all about you discovering it as you go on the journey. And if you connect to the first film, from what I know of the second and third books, it’s only going to get more and more interesting.

Will: Yeah, I would say… to touch upon what Kaya says that the fact your experiences kind of synchronize with the characters. You’re not spoon fed everything. There’s a natural element of ambiguity. There’s a natural number of questions. You are kind of thrust into this world with Thomas and all the other kids in these glades. And you are right with them through every step of the way. You find out as they find out. There’s no voice-over narrating or holding your hand through it. I even recently watched some of the films we were talking about earlier, even some fantasy ones. A few of them start off with a kind of voiceover break down of what’s happened in the world etc. and this [Maze Runner] is entirely different – comes from the opposite direction. And that I think it’s far more action, far more suspenseful and just makes it a more exciting film I think, if I can say that.

Catch the rest of the interview at the source!

Kaya and Will talk with Hypable

Kaya and Will talk all things The Maze Runner during Comic Con with Hypable.

Check out the highlights below:

Will on Gally's mentality:

Thomas is someone who’s looking to escape The Maze– he doesn’t feel safe, and wants to kind of lead in this democratic kind of style and I think for me, you know, as Gally, I have 100 percent faith in the area that we’ve worked to build up. I believe in our hierarchy, I have no desire to escape and I don’t believe there’s a world out there we can survive in or that’s better than the world we’ve created. So we kind of go head to head.

Will on reading the script and book:

I loved the script so I was so excited to read the book and it’s so comforting to see how well the script represents the book for the readership of The Maze Runner. It’s gonna be awesome for them to have so much that they recognize from the book and to sort of have the best loved features of the book celebrated in the film. James Dashner has been such a big supporter of the movie and absolutely loves it– he thinks the movie is even better than the book which is incredible for him to say.

Kaya on James Dashner's trust in Wes:

I think he really trusted Wes [Ball] which says a lot about what a great director Wes is. [James Dashner] knew that his vision was being looked after and he understands as well that there’s certain things that you can’t translate to film or maybe have to adjust lightly. He’s just been a really amazing supporter of that and just loves it– he tweeted just a few days ago that he’d seen the final product and that he cried!

Will on the mysterious water tank scene:

I think the last thing I did on the film was a flashback scene where I’m in a water tank, which is funny because I tweeted about it and the reaction was, ‘why is there a water tank? There weren’t water tanks in the book!’ but I promise you, it’s a cool scene and it was very fun to shoot! And Wes, I think, what he’s done in collaboration with James and the rest of the writing team, is they’ve managed to expand on the best features. They’ve taken the best features of the book, made sure they’re all there, and they’ve built upon them and developed the depth of them. The flashbacks, and the world that existed before we meet Thomas in The Glade is all there in a brilliantly conceptualized way.

Be sure to check out the rest of the great interview with Hypable!

ComicCon 2014 Master Post

Actors, Dylan O'Brien, Kaya Scodelario, and Will Poulter with director Wes Ball and author James Dashner appeared at ComicCon 2014 for The Maze Runner promo and more. Post will be updated!

More after the cut!

The Maze Runner at Comic Con

It's been announced that The Maze Runner will be apart of 20th Century Fox's panel time-slot from 4:20-6:20 pm in Hall H on Friday July 25th!

The Maze Runner panel will feature Dylan O'Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Will Poulter, author James Dashner, and director Wes Ball.

Last year Dylan, James, Wes Ball, and producer Wyck Godfrey attended ComicCon at NerdHQ, which you can check out here.

While The Maze Runner's panel will clearly not last the full two hours (the time-slot is shared with many other of 20th Century Fox's films.), we'll get a lengthy panel with the cast and creatives and hopefully some new footage!

The lucky audience members in Hall H will be receiving The Maze Runner exclusive comic book written by director Wes Ball and screenwriter T. S. Nowlin, pictured by Marcus To. Pictured below.

For the second year in a row, The Maze Runner will be at NERD HQ at Petco Park at 6pm for a panel. In attendance will be Kaya, James, Wes, and Dylan.


Additionally, James Dashner is participating in two other panels: Beyond the Page (followed by a signing) and Publishing 360°: Building a Bestseller.  Details below!

Beyond the Page: Friday, July 25, 2014 -- 11:30am - 12:30pm Room 24ABC
Watching your favorite science fiction and fantasy stories come to life is a thrilling adventure; fiction is fabulous fodder for film, and graphic tales make for great games. Books often inspire multimedia projects that allow fans to fully immerse themselves in the interactive worlds authors have created. From books to movies to TV shows and games, these tales resonate with fans beyond the pages of a novel. James Frey (Endgame), Chris Weitz (The Young World), James Dashner (Maze Runner & The Rule of Thoughts), Andrew Kaplan (Homeland), Fred Van Lente (Make Comics Like Pros), James Silvani (Draw-a-sauras), and Melissa De La Cruz (Ring and the Crown) discuss life as writers in the Digital Age and how technology has transformed both their projects and the publishing industry as a whole. Moderated by Walter Jury (Scan).

Publishing 360°: Building a Bestseller Saturday July 26, 2014 -- 6:00pm - 7:00pm Room 25ABC

Authors James Dashner (The Maze Runner) and Christina Lauren (Beautiful Bastard), together with their publishing teams-literary agent Michael Bourret (Dystel & Goderich Literary Agency), executive editor Krista Marino (Random House, Delacorte), literary agent Holly Root(Waxman Leavell Literary Agency), senior editor Adam Wilson (Simon & Schuster, Gallery), and associate director of publicity Kristin Dwyer (Simon & Schuster, Gallery)-discuss their roles and interactions navigating the path from story idea to bestseller. Moderated by authorNathan Bransford (How to Write a Novel).

Lastly a preview screening will be taking place on THURSDAY July 24th at the Pacific Gaslamp Theater in San Diego at 7:30pm. It appears that the screening is first come first serve, so make sure to get there early!

Comic Con 2013 Masterpost

Dylan O'Brien, producer Wyck Godfrey, director Wes Ball, and author James Dashner stopped by Nerd HQ to promote The Maze Runner.

Panel

Pictures

Via The Maze Runner Facebook

Credits to Dylan O'Brien Daily

Video

Collider interview with Wyck Godfrey

What's the Easter egg franchise potential like for The Maze Runner?

I think the entire mystery of what WCKD is and who they are and what their plan for these boys is, is the thing that drives you into the second book. And you find out, with the way Wes has handled it, was you do discover what's out there, but you don't know everything. You realize very quickly that they've made it out of the maze, but it's just the beginning. It's just the beginning of what they'll have to face, so by the end of the movie, you're satisfied with these having survived the maze trials, but you're dying to know what's going to happen next and I think that's important to get people intense. And the most important thing, frankly, is giving an audience with characters they care about. Essentially the drama of these books is the relationships that are formed and not everyone's going to survive. And you're heart's broken when people die, but if you get the audience caring about Thomas and Minho and Chuck and Newt, they're going to be with you in the second book/movie.

Source

Cinema.de Interview with Dylan

Print

Collider with Dylan O'Brien

On set life:

Yeah, as an actor, it’s interesting because so much was like what you’re focused on and a lot of what you need to focus on is story and your scenes, and telling this story in each scene, and literally being on it constantly while also balancing other things.  In this case, it was a lot of other things.  There was a lot of physical stuff I needed to do for the role as far as — I didn’t need to train or anything for it.  But just as far as daily throwing myself into something or onto something or off of something, or running, hightailing it all day long for a hundred yard dashes.  By the end of the first week, my arms were covered in these cuts and then makeup started kind of duplicating the cuts.  The rest of the shoot when they went away, I would still have the scar of it, like the faint little line because we’re out on the sun all day too.  Then it became my cuts they were actually kind of reviving every day for the movie.  It’s just so funny, I’ve never done anything that physical, I’ve never worked the hours that I’ve worked in this movie, and I’ve never also shot this big of a film.  So, it was a really interesting kind of combination of craziness. 

Surprises for book fans:

 I think everything.  I can’t say how the movie’s going to come out or anything but I think [director] Wes [Ball] is going to kill it.  It’s really gritty, it’s a lot grittier than I think people are going to expect it to be.  What’s funny is that, in terms of subject matter, something like The Hunger Games is much more viciously violent than this story is but when you see the movies though, it’s interesting how — I think this is going to surprise people with how dirty and dark it is.

Check out the rest of this fantastic interview at the source!

Hypable with James Dashner 

On seeing his characters come to life:

There’s so much relief with it. I don’t know how I would have reacted if I have disagreed with all the choices, or if they were butchering my book or my vision. I agree and support everything about this film. I love the casting, I love the script, I love Wes’ vision for it. The tone and the spirit of the movie, it’s almost too good to be true. I am extremely satisfied and happy about it.

On adaptation changes:

There are changes, and they all make sense. I will spend the next seven months soothing my fans, preparing them. For example, the telepathy between Thomas and Teresa would just not work in the movie. Telepathy never works, it just looks cheesy and stupid. It works great in the book, it’s a cool way for them to be connected, but that is not in the film. But Wes Ball is a genius, and the way he creates that connection in a different way is very cool. And small things, like WICKED is just WCKD, and of course there are a lot of fans that went nuts. But it means the exact same thing, it’s pronounced the exact same way, it just looks cooler visually than spelling out the word.

Be sure to check out both Part One and Part Two of this in-depth interview with James!

Teen.com talks with Dylan O'Brien

On the importance of reading the book:

It was important for me but once I got halfway through I realized that it wasn’t too crucial at that point. Because again, I had no time, I came right into pre-production and we were starting in a week and a half. We had already had changes made to our script at that time so I was still getting the script down. We have so many changes from the book to the script that at one point I was starting to get confused. I remember one day I went up to Wes and asked him about a scene we were doing and he was like “that’s not in the script, it’s only in the book” and I was like ‘Oh my God I gotta work this out!’ So I put the book the book aside for a second, I didn’t want to finish it until I was confident I knew the script inside out. That was my priority as an actor, but the book helps so much just briefing me on what I’m doing. I love books too because books in general give so much more insight to characters and people. So it’s really important to get that insight as you are portraying the character.

Three words to describe working with Kaya:

Never-boring, adorable, lovely.

Check out the rest of the interview over at Teen.com