Edgar Wright's Running Man Remake Trailer Makes One Big Change From The Stephen King Book
This post contains potential spoilers for "The Running Man."
The new trailer for Edgar Wright's film adaptation of Stephen King's "The Running Man" has sprinted online, and like the 1987 version starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, it seems to be heading in a much funnier and lighter direction than the book it's adapting.
Set in the not-too-distant future, Glen Powell plays Ben Richards, a down-on-his-luck soul who signs up to be a contestant on a popular and bloodthirsty gameshow called The Running Man. The contest requires our hero to outrun a band of hunters that are tasked with tracking and killing Richards, all for the good of live entertainment. Should he outrun his pursuers, Richards could walk away with a truckload of cash to help his severely sick daughter.
In the 1987 movie, which stands among the better half of Stephen King adaptations (though certainly not one of Schwarzenegger's best movies), the family element was absent. Instead, Richards is turned into a former military officer who went against orders to kill civilians. From there, our hero is thrown into a golden onesie that was as garish as the one-liners he spouted with every successful kill. But the thing both movie versions seem to have in common is that they appear to omit some of the bleakest parts of the book, and instead add a little more pep in this Running Man's step.
Edgar Wright's The Running Man doesn't look as dark as the book (and that's a good thing)
Stephen King's original book (written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman) envisioned a future (coincidentally set in 2025) that was so dystopian, the protagonist's wife turns to prostitution to pay for their daughter's medicine. The challenge of the Running Man competition is also even tougher for Richards, who is drastically out of shape, unlike Powell and his muscular on-screen predecessor. Also, it might be too soon to tell, but the book's ending, which was also left out of the 1987 version, seems unlikely to work well with whatever Wright has come up with here.
(Warning: Spoilers for the original novel below.)
King's original story ends on a profoundly somber note when Richards learns his wife and daughter have been killed by the company organizing the competition. With nothing left to lose, our hero hijacks a plane and crashes it into the network's corporate building, causing an explosion that is described in the book as "lighting up the night like the wrath of God, and it rained fire twenty blocks away." Yikes.
It's clear Wright isn't aiming to replicate the somewhat outdated, pun-filled action of the 1987 film, but we can't wait to see Powell's charm on full display and the s***-eating grin across Josh Brolin's face as executive producer Dan Killian. For a more harrowing foot race orchestrated by King, wait for "The Long Walk" adaptation to hit theaters on September 12, 2025. As for "The Running Man," get ready, set, and go see it when it arrives in theaters on November 7, 2025.