NEW YORK — The young-adult adaptation “The Maze Runner” raced to the top of the box office with $32.5 million, giving a budding franchise a quick start out of the gate.

The 20th Century Fox release easily outpaced the $13.1 million debut of Liam Neeson’s hardboiled private eye thriller “A Walk Among the Tombstones” and the $11.9 million opening for the ensemble-cast dramedy “This Is Where I Leave You,” according to studio estimates Sunday.

The strong opening for “The Maze Runner,” adapted from James Dashner’s science-fiction YA novel, is a big success for a movie that cost $34 million to make and was released in the normally quiet month of September. Fox aimed to make the film – about a group of teenage boys mysteriously locked inside a giant maze – the first post-summer event movie, putting it on IMAX and large-format screens.

“Our little $34 million-budgeted film is pretty darn strong,” said Chris Aronson, head of distribution for Fox. “No one had launched a YA title in September. We took a risk, but it paid off.”

Aronson said attracting young moviegoers has been “the Achilles heel” of Hollywood in recent years. But the studio has recently found success with relatively low-budget YA releases, such as “The Fault in Our Stars,” the Shailene Woodley melodrama that made $125 million earlier this year despite a budget of just $12 million.

“The Maze Runner,” which drew a 51 percent female audience despite an almost all-male cast, is now a promising franchise. Its opening was further boosted by $37.6 million internationally.


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