The Running Man

In the near future, "The Running Man" is the top-rated show on television, a deadly competition where contestants must survive 30 days while being hunted by professional assassins.

Desperate for money to save his sick daughter, Ben Richards is convinced by the show's ruthless producer to enter the game as a last resort. Ratings soon skyrocket as Ben's defiance; instincts and grit turn him into an unexpected fan favourite, as well as a threat to the entire system.

It has been a huge year for Stephen King fans…you wait for one film and then a bumper crop comes along to Showcase Cinemas!  

Our big screens have played host to The Monkey, The Life of Chuck, The Long Walk and now Edgar Wright’s re-imagination of the Arnold Schwarzenegger classic The Running Man. 

Stepping into Schwarzenegger’s shoes and playing the classic Stephen King everyman Ben Richards, is Glen Powell. The Top Gun Maverick star is joined by Michael Cera, Josh Brolin, Colman Domingo, William H. Macy and Emilia Jones.

Our friends at Sight and Sound Magazine recently brought together King and Wright for a great meeting of minds! 

Here are a few highlights. 

King: When I wrote the book, 2025 just seemed so far in the future that I couldn’t even grasp it in my mind.

On Edgar Wright directing a remake: I think things worked out really well. Sometimes you just ride with an angel, so to speak. And my angel was Edgar Wright. I mean, obviously, we live in a reality-based world, and so many things are game shows now, even politics. They’re already talking about 2026, and the elections, and that’s part of the game. It’s all part of a competition.

Wright: I’ve had an on-going email correspondence with Stephen for quite a number of years now. The first time we were in contact was after Shaun of the Dead (2004), when Stephen was very kind to give us an amazing print quote for our ad campaign.

King: We talked around Baby Driver [2017] too…

Wright: Yeah, exactly. And I think around that time…after you were so nice about Baby Driver

Wright: We actually met finally in person a couple of weeks ago, which was joyous. I really wanted to meet Stephen before the film came out. I told him this the other day. I had been working on it since 2021, but I knew you knew I was probably working it, but I didn’t want to talk to you about it over email until I knew it was almost definitely going to happen, because I didn’t want to be like the boy who cried wolf. And the idea of talking to you about it and then it not coming together would have been so heart-breaking. I waited until the last minute, and then I emailed Stephen and said, “Now, as you’re probably aware…”

 

On casting Glen Powell

Wright: I was aware of Glen before actually meeting him. I’d seen him in Everybody Wants Some!! (2016) and obviously in Top Gun: Maverick (2022), but when later I saw him in Hit Man (2023), which he co-wrote, I thought he really had chops as a dramatic actor and a comedic actor. But the other very important thing about Glen is he has this everyman quality, which not all action stars have, and that felt really important.

When a movie like this goes into development, the studio gives you a list of stars, and Glen was the one person on the list where I thought that a) I hadn’t seen him already killing tons of baddies onscreen and b) I would buy him as a guy off the street. It’s a similar quality to Harrison Ford. It might seem like a strange comparison between Indiana Jones and Ben Richards, but the thing with Harrison Ford in a lot of his early roles is that he’s fallible — he’s not perfect, he’s winging it a lot of the time, and sometimes he spends a lot of the film on his heels. When I think about Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), I think about Indy getting punched in the face and dropping like a sack of potatoes.

A lot of action these days has characters who are already the best at what they do — John Wick is the best hit man ever, Jason Bourne is an amnesiac but was this formidable super-spy. The thing about Ben Richards, in the book at least, is that he’s not already an action hero. In the film, we have him working in construction, so he’s tough, but he’s not a trained killer and not a superhero. And hopefully the net result in the movie is you think, “How can this guy possibly win?”

On being a modern day Die Hard (1988) 

King: Yeah, it’s just got a twinkle in it.

Wright: It’s a similar thing in the first Die Hard (1988). Yes, John McClane is a cop, but he’s also flying by the seat of his pants for most of the movie. What makes it exciting is that he genuinely seems out of his depth against these terrorists. And in the best action adventure, there has to be a sense that the hero could actually die. The first Die Hard is an action classic, and it just totally works.

The thing is, action heroes need vulnerability. What’s great watching Glen do it is that he’s reacting in real time to what’s happening.

The other big part of the book we wanted to bring to the screen was the first-person element, that subjective point of view where you feel like you’re on the show with him. And it’s funny, because people who’ve watched it have said, “I felt like I was on the show because I’m seeing everything from his point of view.”

King: He’s an immensely likeable character, and he has that in common with McClane in Die Hard. So, I mean, it’s important to have a likeable main character, and he really is, and he feels fleshed out. It’s good.

The Running Man is released on November 12 at Showcase Cinemas, with tickets available here: https://www.showcasecinemas.co.uk/movies/290564-the-running-man/