New Running Man Film Aims to Be True to King’s Original

Paramount Pictures recently dropped the first trailer for The Running Man (2025), Edgar Wright’s latest directorial effort. This is the latest film adaptation of Stephen King’s 1982 dystopian thriller of the same name, originally published under King’s pseudonym Richard Bachman. Unlike the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger-starring action movie, Wright’s iteration is bound to be a more genuine adaptation.

King published several books during the late 1970s and early ’80s under the Bachman alias before being outed as the mastermind behind that pen name in 1984. The most celebrated of those titles is 1982’s The Running Man, which King allegedly completed in a week. Set in the fictional future of 2025 (which curiously also happens to be the same year of the movie’s release) in a dystopian version of the U.S., the novel follows an America in economic and social decline and a vicious reality game show competing in the ratings.

A low-income family man living in a poor urban area called “Co-Op City” with his wife and daughter, Ben Richards is a blacklisted free speech fighter who can’t seem to get a job. On a whim, he decides to apply and participate in The Running Man, the country’s most popular television show: Runners are chased by mercenaries, or Hunters, in front of the “watching world” television audience. The government labels him a wanted traitor and awards him 12 hours to begin his race to stay alive. The game is simple: last 30 days, and you’re a winner. The prize? $1 billion. No one has ever come close, though the record is at 197 hours. Surviving one day is worth cash, and of course, there is money for knocking out the Hunters. This gives the competitors a bleak but necessary incentive. When necessary, Runners are allowed to leave clues to help them during the game. Ben does rather well for himself as the days pass—but for anyone familiar with King’s work, the happy ending is unlikely.

In 1987, director Paul Michael Glaser helmed the film adaptation of The Running Man, which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as the leading man. The film kept the fundamental idea of the murderous game show but evolved into an action movie and a pure science fiction film, trading in the raw satire and underlying anxiety of the book for the somewhat cartoonish tone of late-’80s action blockbusters. Glaser’s film isn’t bad—far from it, in fact—but it bears very little in common with the story King wrote. Schwarzenegger is stripped of his humanity and built to be purely a physical performer; where King’s description of Ben in the novel paints him as “scrawny” and “pre-tubercular,” his film avatar is a musclebound action hero. The film is loud, kinetic, and unrelentingly full of pop. The focus is on the action and practical effects rather than the message of the story. The film was and is a guilty pleasure, but it lacks most of the subtext of King’s source material.

Edgar Wright, famous for directing the Shaun of the Dead trilogy, Baby Driver, and Last Night in Soho, was announced as attached to The Running Man as early as 2017. In 2021, Paramount greenlit the film with Wright attached as director and joined by new co-writer Michael Bacall. Wright and Bacall’s script is said to be much more in line with the book, but still gives a very much 2025 sense of action and social commentary.

The new trailer gives fans some insight into the film. It stars Glen Powell as Ben Richards, the film’s everyman, who is probably best known at this point for being in movies rather than for playing any particular character. Josh Brolin plays Dan Killian, the show’s producer. He’s your quintessential smooth corporate executive—but that doesn’t stop him from getting his hands dirty. Brolin’s Killian is as crooked as he is slick. Ben initially runs in the game on a wager that gets him thrown in by the corrupt Killian. After Ben is caught and escapes, Killian is unable to stop the audience’s support for Ben, forcing him into the game. The more successful Ben is, the more of a crowd favorite he becomes. Ben himself is grungy and desperate, in stark contrast to his film predecessors in this role, and he’s quite charismatic for a mess of a man. The trailer makes it clear that Ben is popularly perceived as a true threat to the government, though his message is watered down for television sensationalism.

Lee Pace will play Evan McCone, the lead Hunter who will track Ben down; Jayme Lawson will play Ben’s wife, Sheila; Colman Domingo will play Bobby Thompson, the game show host; and Michael Cera has a role as the rebel Bradley Throckmorton. Joining them are William H. Macy, David Zayas, Emilia Jones, Karl Glusman, Katy O’Brian, and Daniel Ezra.

Can’t Tell a Bachman Book by its Cover

The Running Man isn’t the only upcoming film fans of King’s Bachman period can look forward to. Another of King’s dystopian runner-up novels, The Long Walk, which he wrote in 1979, also has a movie adaptation on the docket in 2025. The film is scheduled to be released on September 12, while The Running Man’s release date is November 7.

The Long Walk follows a marathon where the stakes for losing are high and survival of the fittest is brutal. As well as a game of survival, both stories are a meditation on state violence, media complicity, and how much of ourselves we should be willing to sell. The year 2025 is looking big for King fans—and quite possibly one to take stock and reflect on what we want our media landscape to look like in 2025, and what we can do now to make that a reality.