More on Wes Ball

In case you missed the big news yesterday, Wes Ball is set to direct the movie adaption of  The Maze Runner! He is a newer director who has only directed a short film titled Ruin, which Fox also has acquired the rights to make a feature film of.

According to Indiewire,  Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke was originally signed on to the project, but dropped out to work on other projects sometime between December 2010 and now.  To the best of our knowledge, Noah Oppenheim’s script is still the official one.

A complete directing greenie is a far cry from James Dashner’s dream directors Christopher Nolan and Peter Jackson, but we can’t judge until we see the movie, which is going to be out in 2014 at the earliest. What is your opinion on Wes Ball?

Elizabeth Banks Knows Good Books!

Elizabeth Banks, who is currently promoting her latest film, Man on a Ledge, briefly talks about how she was introduced to The Hunger Games, and not too surprisingly, her introduction to that fandom might have been due to her mention of her love for The Maze Runner!

“I first got the book from a publishing friend,” said the actress, who plays District 12′s tribute handler Effie Trinket. “I had read a similarly themed book called The Maze Runner, also a great book, and someone said, ‘If you liked that, you’ll really like this upcoming book called The Hunger Games.’ ”

*Pause.* So, it sounds like she was a fan before the book was even out, back in September 2008. The Maze Runner, incidentally, is the first in a trilogy by James Dashner about a boy who wakes up in a box with no memory of his past and realizes he’s one of a group of boys forced to try to escape an ever-changing life-size maze. Catherine Hardwicke was attached to direct that movie, but we haven’t heard any news on it since January 2011. (Update: James Dashner just tweeted us that he doesn’t think Hardwicke is attached anymore. Boo!) OK, back to Banks and her Games obsession. *Unpause*

You can see the video and read the whole story here.

So, this amazing actress really knows her YA literature!