Edgar Wright's The Running Man Could Succeed Where Squid Game Season 3 Failed

Nature abhors a vacuum, and one sharp-eyed project about a deadly game show rises when another belly-flops. Let's face it: "Squid Game" season 3 is great if you like creepy games, but it's pretty awful if you were expecting the kind of social commentary the show used to be known for. By the time "Squid Game" season 1 ended, the show had established its place not only as Netflix's #1 show but also as a complex and multi-faceted study about the nature of wealth and systems that treat human beings as a commodity. "Squid Game" season 2 changed the games by introducing the voting system, which explored similar avenues — but little by little, the social commentary fell by the wayside and the show focused on sheer brutality. The final season offers neither true closure nor real lessons, utterly dropping the social commentary ball "Squid Game" once carried so proudly.

Fortunately, it seems that 2025 won't be completely devoid of deadly game shows that actually have something to say. The new trailer for Edgar Wright's "The Running Man" remake makes it clear that the upcoming movie intends to do what "Squid Game" failed to: shine an unwavering light on various economic, social, and cultural issues as the desperate Ben Richards (Glen Powell) takes part in a profitable but deadly manhunt show to save his child.

I have a feeling that "The Running Man" can go to places "Squid Game" never could. Stephen King's "The Running Man" novel from 1982 is a tale of a near-future dystopia of the year, uh, 2025, where social disparity is extreme, the U.S. is a totalitarian state, and the world is a volatile mess. This offers plenty of opportunities for social commentary for pretty obvious reasons, but what really seals the deal for me is Wright.

"Squid Game" was effectively destined to end without any major contributions on the social commentary front by becoming a cultural powerhouse and a Netflix cash cow. It's hard to punch up when you're at the top, and with David Fincher's spin-off series looming on the horizon, the original couldn't avoid keeping up some version of status quo instead of fully bringing down the game or even truly resolving the moral dilemmas around it. Otherwise, what would the Fincher show have left to cover? 

Wright, on the other hand, has no such issues. With his Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy and other work, he's proven many times over that he's extremely adept at poking the seams of humanity and pointing out its faults without being too overbearing. From juxtaposing modern worker drones with zombies in "Shaun of the Dead" to the exploration of adulthood and letting go the past in "The World's End," Wright has a track record of hitting his goals with nuance and tact ... and judging by the "Running Man" trailer, he's now turning his eye on social commentary on an unforeseen scale. 

It's too early to say whether the amount of brutal commentary the source material calls for (and Wright apparently intends to go for) will be successfully executed. However, the trailer's hectic manhunt beats and attention to the powers that be using bloodlust to distract the downtrodden masses — not to mention certain moments on a plane that make me wonder whether Wright intends to be uncomfortably faithful to the novel's vicious ending – suggest that he's definitely going to far exceed whatever social commentary "Squid Game" season 3 could have hoped to deliver.

"The Running Man" opens in theaters on November 7, 2025.