Edgar Wright Calls His ‘The Running Man’ Adaptation a “Dangerous Road Movie”

Stephen King’s The Running Man is headed back to the big screen later this year from director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Last Night in Soho), with Glen Powell (Top Gun: Maverick, Twisters) taking over the role played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1987 movie. It’s set for release in theaters from Paramount on November 7, 2025.

Chatting with Empire Magazine, Wright teases that his upcoming movie is going to be more faithful to Stephen King’s source novel than the 1980s movie adaptation ended up being.

Wright previews, “One of the things about the book that I loved was the fact that Ben Richards is out in the world on his own, so it’s like the deadliest game of hide and seek. It does feel like making a road movie in a lot of ways: a very intense, dangerous road movie.”

“Ben is moving through different environments and meeting different people as he tries to survive 30 days out in the wild,” Wright continues.

Glen Powell will be playing the role of Ben in Wright’s The Running Man, with Colman Domingo (Candyman) and Katy O’Brian (Love Lies Bleeding) also starring in the film.

King’s novel, published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, was released in 1982, loosely adapted into the same-titled Arnold Schwarzenegger-starring film in 1987. In the film, “In a dystopian America, a falsely convicted policeman gets his shot at freedom when he must forcibly participate in a TV game show where convicts must battle killers for their freedom.”

Daniel Baldwin celebrated 30 years of the 1987 movie adaptation here on Bloody Disgusting back in 2017. He wrote, “30 years later, The Running Man’s social satire hits harder now than it did upon arrival. That alone makes it worthy of remembrance. Once you throw in a pulpy premise, a fun cast, adrenaline-fueled action, hilarious lines, a pulse-pounding synth score, and Arnold at the top of his game. If you haven’t seen it before, now’s the time to change that.”