Maze Runner Box Office: Budget and Worldwide Gross for All Three Films

The three Maze Runner films earned about $949 million worldwide on reported budgets totaling $157 million, according to Box Office Mojo. The table sets out each film's budget and gross in US dollars, with the series collection in the last row.

The Maze Runner (2014), directed by Wes Ball and released in the US on September 19, 2014, cost $34 million to make, and both Box Office Mojo and The Numbers list the same figure. It went on to gross $102 million domestic and $246 million internationally, which makes it the cheapest and the highest grossing film of the three.

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015), also directed by Wes Ball, reached US theaters in September 2015 and carried a $61 million budget. It finished with $312 million worldwide, of which $82 million came from domestic ticket sales. Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018), the third film and again directed by Wes Ball, was released by 20th Century Fox in the US on January 26, 2018. Box Office Mojo lists its budget at $62 million (The Numbers puts it at $61 million) and its worldwide gross at $288 million, with $58 million domestic. The Numbers records an opening weekend of $24.2 million in the US.

The Numbers matches Box Office Mojo on the first film but reports different worldwide totals for the two sequels, so every figure here is the Box Office Mojo one. If you want the people behind these grosses, see the maze runner cast page, and for the film list see how many maze runner movies are there.

In my opinion the Maze Runner series was a commercial success overall, with a clear hit in the first film and two sequels that made money while slowing down in the US. Was The Maze Runner a hit or flop? On a $34 million budget it grossed $348 million worldwide, about ten times its cost, and that ratio is the best in the series by a wide margin. I would call it a hit.

The sequels tell a quieter story. Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials grossed about five times its $61 million budget, but its domestic gross fell from $102.4 million for the first film to $81.7 million. Maze Runner: The Death Cure grossed about 4.6 times its $62 million budget, and its domestic gross dropped again, to $58.0 million. Meanwhile, international sales barely moved: $245.9 million, $230.6 million, then $230.1 million. As such, the domestic share of each worldwide total shrank from about 29 percent to 26 percent to 20 percent, so the overseas audience carried the third film.

Was Maze Runner 3 a hit or a flop? It could be argued that The Death Cure was a modest hit: it earned back its reported budget several times over, yet it was the weakest US performer of the three. Perhaps the gap of more than two years between September 2015 and January 2018 cooled American interest, though that is my speculation and not a reported cause. Gross is also not profit, so a ratio like 4.6 times says little about what the studio actually kept.

For now the series total stays at three films. According to TheWrap (May 3, 2024), 20th Century Studios is developing a reboot described as a continuation of the original trilogy, with Jack Paglen in talks to write and Wes Ball attached as a producer rather than a director. No release date has been reported, so any new gross is a long way off. If you want to see how these earnings line up against quality, read maze runner movies ranked, and for the status of the next film see new maze runner movie.