Why Glen Powell's Running Man Changed The Stephen King Story's Original Ending

Edgar Wright, Glen Powell, and Stephen King's "The Running Man" is a combination that has stirred both film nerds and action aficionados' imaginations ever since the project was announced. With the film's November 14 release date drawing near, it's almost time to experience the cake that the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy director and the "Top Gun: Maverick" star have baked and decorated.  

In the latest issue of SFX magazine, "The Running Man" director Wright answered questions about the movie and touched on a single subject that fans who are familiar with the source material have probably been wondering: how the movie intends to adapt the story's ending. Removed from all context, it's a powerful finale that I personally consider one of the best Stephen King book endings out there. However, no work of art exists in a vacuum, and the weight of history can't be ignored, so the protagonist flying a plane into a skyscraper is an extremely uncomfortable finale after the 9/11 terror attacks. Wright seems to agree with this line of thinking, seeing as he confirmed that the film's ending will be different (if thematically similar) from the source material:

"There are obviously some elements [of the book] that are not going to be a part of the new adaptation. Even Stephen King ... he had to give script approval, and probably one of the most nerve-wracking parts of the production was sending the email to him with the screenplay attached. He loved the adaptation and said he'd been curious as to how we were going to tackle the ending. I'd say it's not that ending, but it has the spirit of that ending. We allude to it, in a way."

When you measure its weight on the rubber sheet of zeitgeist, the 1987 action film adaptation of "The Running Man" (starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as protagonist Ben Richards) is likely the best-known version of the story, outweighing even King's original story despite bearing famously little resemblance to the source material. It, too, provided the audience with its own spin on the ending, choosing to wrap up the story with resistance forces invading the broadcasting network behind the games and taking it down in the most "1980s sci-fi action film" way imaginable (it involves a rocket sled). 

While the 2025 version of "The Running Man" seems to be a more faithful Stephen King adaptation than the 1987 one, we now know that they both have opted against using the 1982 novel's ending. Combine this with the fact that we already know that Wright has included some tactical homages to the movie's predecessor in his version, and Glen Powell is peppering his performance with Schwarzenegger Easter eggs, and it just might be that the new version of "The Running Man" bears more than a passing similarity to the happily cheesy Arnold classic after all.

"The Running Man" jogs to a theater near you on November 14.