If TWILIGHT director Catherine Hardwicke isn’t consciously skewing younger with each new picture, she’s definitely shepherding more mainstream fare. After doing gritty indie work with THIRTEEN and LORDS OF DOGTOWN, she’s gone from TWILIGHT to RED RIDING HOOD. Now, keeping her soft-fetish for the youngsters intact, Catherine is now possibly training THE MAZE RUNNER, a teen-centric sci-fi thriller based on James Dashner’s book of the same name.
Word comes from The Wrap, which notes the project is set up at Fox. Apparently THE MAZE RUNNER is the first in a trilogy of dystopic young adult novels, with “The Scorch Trials” and “The Death Cure” (which Dashner just turned in) following suit.
Here’s a wiki plot-crunch for THE MAZE RUNNER:
Thomas wakes up to find himself in a square elevator which brings him up to the top. He is greeted by a group of boys who pull him out into their surroundings. Thomas learns that all these boys live in a place called the Glade. The Glade is surrounded by tall, stone walls with four massive doors in the center of each wall. These doors close each night to protect them from the monsters that live beyond the Glade’s walls. The monsters live in a place called the Maze which surrounds the walls around the Glade. These monsters are called Grievers which sting the Gladers if they can. The Gladers then undergo the Changing, a painful process which people can survive if given the serum in time, and come out with side effects.
Side effects? Gladers and Grievers? A place populated with nothing but young boys? Yup, I’m already creeped out.
If you do end up making this Catherine, do us all a favor…change shite around so at least two females enter The Glade, and damn it…make sure it’s Ashley Greene (TWILIGHT) and Amanda Seyfried (RED RIDING HOOD, below).