Published:
Readtime: 4 min
Every product is carefully selected by our editors and experts. If you buy from a link, we may earn a commission. Learn more. For more information on how we test products, click here.
Stephen King famously wrote The Running Man in about a week. Published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, the 1982 novel depicts a United States hooked on televised suffering, mistrusting its media, and drowning in economic decay. How timely!
Rather than remake the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film, director Edgar Wright ditches much of the cult classic, including Arnie’s, “here is Sub-Zero — now plain zero!” line for something closer to King’s somewhat prophetic novel.
2025 has been quite the year for Stephen King adaptations, with horror auteur Osgood Perkins adapting The Monkey, Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence taking on The Long Walk, and The Life of Chuck arriving from director Mike Flanagan, who previously helmed screen stories of King’s Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep.
As The Running Man hits theatres, audiences can now take in a fourth adaptation of King’s work on the big screen this year. But it worth a watch?
A Tried, Tired Formula
Rebuilding the story’s 2025 setting (ironically the actual futuristic year King set the novel in), Wright creates a place where the public is glued to the ‘Network’: a monolithic entertainment empire that airs programmes like The Running Man, Swim the Crocodiles, and How Hot Can You Take It?, which sounds a lot like the talkshow Hot Ones.
While not as futuristic or stylised as its 80s predecessor, a dystopian-action thriller is still a harder sell today. There have been a ton of similar efforts since the 1987 original, and the genre has ultimately worn a little thin.
Here, Glen Powell steps into the Schwarzenegger tracksuit as lead Ben Richards, a hard-working-but-broke everyman who’s just trying to get medicine for his daughter. When Richards volunteers to be cast on one of the Network’s lesser, somewhat safer shows for quick cash, he inevitably ends up on the new season of The Running Man instead.
The show involves a nationwide manhunt broadcast live with incentives to the public for reporting contestant whereabouts and grants a license to kill any contestant vying for the $1 billion ‘new dollars’ grand prize — which no one in the history of the show has ever won.
Wright or Wrong?
Despite Wright’s efforts to inject his trademark kinetic energy, it’s really Powell’s compelling performance, along with the supporting cast, that makes the remake worth a watch.
Whether Powell is rappelling down buildings clad in a towel or celebrating his continued survival chest deep in sewage (“I’m still here, ya shit eaters!”), it’s easy to be on Richards’ side, even as he succumbs to playing the Network’s insidious game.
Wright’s vision works best when highlighting how the Network weaponises perception. King’s original concept of manipulated broadcasts feels frighteningly realistic in Wright’s hands, where deepfakes, carefully scripted live feeds, and algorithmic bias are all meant to manipulate and coax public opinion.
While the ending is far more hopeful than King’s nihilistic finale, Wright still struggles to find a satisfying conclusion, settling instead on the most obvious route.
A Solid Run
For all its strengths, The Running Man doesn’t fully escape the pitfalls of its genre. Wright does have some critical commentary to share about wealth, technology, and power, but it all feels familiar within the dystopian landscape.
The cat-and-mouse sequences near the middle are where most of the excitement happens, with a supporting Michael Cera delivering one of the best sequences of the film. And yes, there is an Arnold nod, a wink which Wright folds in without beating the audience overhead with it.
2025’s The Running Man is a mostly gripping update of King’s story, in which Powell continues to develop a strong, leading man presence. With just enough bite to feel relevant, it’s not a future anyone would want to meander in, but it makes for a decent run through. ★★★☆☆
Comments
We love hearing from you. or to leave a comment.