Netflix’s daily Top 10 ranking of movies offers as good an example as any of how we’re pretty much in a new phase of the streaming wars these days. Whereas, for years, streaming platforms like Netflix scrambled to fund as much original content as possible, new Parrot Analytics data reveals that third-party titles licensed by streamers like Netflix now account for around two-thirds of the value derived from movies.
And here’s a perfect example: The “Maze Runner” movie trilogy, which, as of October 15, is taking up three spots on Netflix’s daily Top 10 movies chart in the U.S. Director Wes Ball’s trilogy includes “The Maze Runner” (2014), “Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials” (2015), and “Maze Runner: The Death Cure” (2018), and they’re currently sitting at numbers 5, 6, and 7 respectively on Netflix’s Top 10. Not bad for a franchise that’s more than a decade old at this point.
Maze Runner movies are a hit on Netflix
“The franchise,” Netflix explains in a summary of the movies, “tells the tale of a young scientist and the group of misfits among whom he mysteriously wakes up — all memories wiped but their names. He must then lead them through a killer maze to freedom. But when they finally make it out, they find the outside world ravaged by solar flares, which have decimated the planet’s population and left the dregs of humanity plagued with a sickness called the Flare.”
The “Maze Runner” movies are based on novels written by James Dashner, and the cast includes Dylan O’Brien, Kaya Scodelario (who, by the way, is fantastic as a crime boss’ daughter in Netflix’s “The Gentlemen” series), plus Will Poulter, Giancarlo Esposito, and Walton Goggins, among others. In the first movie, a group of young people with no memories has to figure out how to escape a maze — uncovering its secret, while also avoiding deadly creatures.
“After escaping the maze and making it to a remote fortified outpost,” Netflix explains about movie #2, “the Gladers — Thomas, Teresa, and friends — must make a daring escape across the Scorch, a desolate wasteland marked with damage from solar flares and infested with Cranks, who were once human but are now infected with the Flare.” And as for the third movie, it involves the Gladers needing to save their friends and quite possibly the world by breaking into the so-called ‘last city,’ which is apparently even more of a threat than the maze itself. If you love dystopian fiction, consider this your next binge assignment from Netflix — especially if you’re a fan of movies like “The Hunger Games” and “Divergent.”
