With Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials out now, let's take a look at 7 things you probably
didn't know about the big-screen adaptation of James Dashner's best-selling novel.
According to the cast, The Scorch Trials was even more physically demanding and involved
even more running than the first movie.
So, when Ki Hong Lee, who plays Minho, was running up sand dunes, he suffered a minor
fracture to one of his knees.
But that wasn't the only injury he sustained on set.
He also cut himself several times after he asked for a real knife instead of using a
blunt one for a scene where he flipped a knife and caught it.
As for Kaya Scodelario, who plays Teresa, although she avoided injury while filming
The Maze Runner, she wasn't so lucky on The Scorch Trials where she had back and knee
problems from all the running.
And being barefoot for part of the movie proved its own hazard as Scodelario ran into a bolt
sticking that was up out of the set floor and pulled off her toenail!
The main cast took part in a boot camp before The Scorch Trials began filming.
However, whereas training for the first movie included learning survival skills and camping
overnight in the wooded Louisiana location used for the Glade, The Scorch Trials boot
camp involved running 2 to 3 miles a day in Albuquerque's mile-high altitude and practising
stunts such as a long slide through a closing door and a leap-into-mid-air-kick.
Most of the movie's sand dune scenes were filmed at Pajarito Dunes, west of Albuquerque
in New Mexico.
The design team removed footprints and vehicle tracks from the dunes by sweeping with rakes
and used a low-hovering helicopter as a giant fan to create a swirling effect in the sand.
After a hard day filming The Scorch Trials, many of the cast spent the evenings hanging
out together, playing Mario Kart and cooking.
Kaya Scodelario made Brazilian dishes and reckoned she was the best in the kitchen because
she's inherited her Brazilian mother's cooking gene.
Dylan O'Brien's specialities were chicken parmesan and breaded chicken cutlets, while
Dexter Darden, who plays Frypan, loved to grill and also made a mean macaroni and cheese
as well as fried chicken.
The movie's party sequence was shot over two days at an 8,500-square-foot mansion known
as The Castle in downtown Albuquerque.
The Castle was built over two years from 2006 and was the home of late jewellery designer
Gertrude Zachary.
During filming, the walls of the mansion were covered in dark green wallpaper aged with
mildew and staining to give this quite new building the feel of a grand mansion past
its glory days.
The design team also added hundreds of candles melted down into mounds, and VHS tape that
was pulled out to use as streamers.
The dark tunnels, storm drains and diversion channels under the University of New Mexico
Hospital in Albuquerque proved the perfect place to film scenes set beneath the desolate
landscape of the Scorch.
The sequences in Jorge's lair were filmed on sets constructed at Albuquerque Studios
and at the vacant railyard complex south of downtown Albuquerque, where movies including
The Avengers and Terminator: Salvation, and TV show Breaking Bad have also filmed.
The design of where the scavengers live in the lair was inspired by the look of Kowloon
Walled City in Hong Kong, a now-demolished stacked building structure where people lived
in very cramped conditions.
Lots of the objects used to dress the set of Jorge's penthouse were bits of metal and
junk furniture found in salvage and recycling yards.
Now, let me know in the comments below, who's your favourite character in The Maze Runner
series?
And what's your favourite book-to-big-screen adaptation & why?
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Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!