A relative newcomer, director Wes Ball is a perfect example of a filmmaker who stuck to his guns – the love of telling a great story. He knew at an early age that he had an intention to make movies, but like most of us, wasn’t certain as to how he should follow that intention and make it a career. The advice we continue to hear in our Curious About Screenwriting series of interviews is that there isn’t one way to “make it”. There is no direct route. There is no simple stepladder. Wes pushed and pushed but not because he wanted to make money doing what he loved, but because he simply loved filmmaking and storytelling.
After creating an eye-popping 7-minute short called “Ruin” (which you can find online if you simply Google “Ruin” and Wes Ball – it’s worth watching for sure), the short film went viral and caught the eyes of multiple Hollywood execs. How he went from a relative no-name to suddenly having two movies at Fox is a stunner of a story, and proves that if you simply devote your time to doing what you love, you never know what can happen. His first movie – his directorial debut – was The Maze Runner. The Maze Runner went on to a huge box office return, and he was swiftly picked up to direct its sequel, The Scorch Trials. I personally loved The Maze Runner and am really looking forward to checking out the sequel. It hits theatres on September 18. Let’s get folks back into the theatres and enjoy the final days of summer by watching Wes’ latest. We look forward to tracking his future success and of course are thankful that he spent time with us on Curious About.
