There was no greater time to be a fan of popular young adult genre fiction than in the early-to-mid 2010s, when the likes of Twilight and The Hunger Games were making mincemeat of the box office with four films apiece, and Hollywood executives had dollar signs twinkling in their eyes whenever they heard the word “dystopian,” “vampire,” or “love triangle.”
Late to this party, however, were the Maze Runner films, which currently consists of a trio of movies based on James Dashner’s sci-fi novels of the same name, adapting the first, second, and third books in the series in the form of The Maze Runner, Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, and Maze Runner: The Death Cure, respectively.
Falling somewhere between the high-flying Hunger Games movies and the almost universally detested Twilight films in terms of quality, the Maze Runner franchise still proved to be a heavy hitter at the box office between 2014 and 2018, and with Disney having announced about five years ago now that the film series would continue, one has to wonder if that window is still open in a post-Covid world.
Indeed, what’s the word on Maze Runner 4?
Is there a Maze Runner 4 release date?
At the time of writing, there is no release date for the fourth Maze Runner movie, largely due to the fact that there’s not much in the way of evidence for such a film’s existence in any capacity.
If it ever does come along, however, it could take the form of an adaptation of The Kill Order, a prequel novel set 13 years before the events of the original Maze Runner book, detailing how the world of the canon came to be (specifically, the cosmic event that ravaged humanity and paved the way for the events of the original trilogy).
Another likely possibility is branching off into The Maze Cutter spinoff trilogy; a story focused on Glader descendants set 73 years after The Death Cure. Given the book’s publication in 2022, that adaptation would arguably be the wiser move as it’s likely fresher in the minds of readers at the moment.
All Maze Runner movies are currently available to stream on Disney Plus.