First Look: Glen Powell in Edgar Wright’s Running Man

Paramount Pictures has released the first trailer for The Running Man, the new film adaptation of Stephen King’s 1982 novel of the same name, directed by Edgar Wright. Wright is working from his screenplay alongside Michael Bacall, with a release date set for November 7, 2025.

Published under King’s Richard Bachman pseudonym, The Running Man is a satirical novel that depicts a near-future, dystopian version of the United States, in the year 2025, where a fascist regime uses a violent game show to distract the population and sell ad space. It was one of several books King published under the Bachman name in the late 1970s and early ‘80s until he was outed as the author in 1984.

Stephen King introduced Bachman to a nearly bygone era where music came on cassettes and physical books still reigned supreme.

In the 2025 version of the United States, the government has almost all media rights. Its most popular show is The Running Man, a “survival hunt” in which a fugitive contestant, called a Runner, must stay alive for as long as possible while being hunted by a team of professional killers. When the show’s producers discover a blacklisted shipyard worker named Ben Richards hiding out in his hometown, he turns the tables on them and decides to join the game as a Runner himself.

The book was written over a week in 1982 as King was trying to replicate the sale of over 100,000 copies of Bachman’s second novel, The Long Walk, published a year prior. The Running Man was a top seller in King’s back catalog until it was surpassed by It in 1990.

In 1987, The Running Man became a popular action movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in the lead. It took plenty of liberties with King’s source material, veering more towards science fiction action with a healthy dose of 1980s blockbuster excess. As with many Schwarzenegger films, the lead character was more muscle-bound than the book described. King’s original Ben Richards was “scrawny,” “pre-tubercular,” and desperate rather than a hulking superhero. Still, as a movie, The Running Man was a noisy, flashy, and fun watch. Its take on the game show aspects of the novel was well done, if much less grim than in the book, which was about how sadistic and dehumanizing the experience could be.

By contrast, Wright’s upcoming version stars Glen Powell as Ben Richards and seems to promise a closer adaptation of the book. The newly released trailer also introduces Josh Brolin as the show’s host, Dan Killian, a manipulative egotist who deliberately targets Richards and recruits him to participate in the game. The Runner becomes a surprise success, much to the chagrin of the fascist President Edward Douglas and the show’s sponsors.

Lee Pace joins the cast as the lead Hunter on Ben Richards’ case, while Jayme Lawson, Colman Domingo, and Michael Cera fill out the main cast. Other cast members include William H. Macy, David Zayas, Emilia Jones, Karl Glusman, Katy O’Brian, and Daniel Ezra. It’s not known if the adaptation will follow King’s characteristic downbeat conclusion to the novel.

Filming for the project is currently in production in Georgia.

King’s 1979 Bachman book, The Long Walk, also has a film adaptation coming in 2025. It’s slated to release on September 12, two months before the release of The Running Man. In this novel, a group of teenage boys must walk without stopping or they will be killed by “stickers” along the roadside. The winner of this annual government-sponsored competition is awarded one million dollars, and it’s an ordeal that tests the boys in unexpected ways.

The Long Walk and The Running Man share similar themes in terms of the cruelty and absurdity of government-run competitions, the power of media, and the cost of survival. Wright’s The Running Man may well be bleak, but with just over a year away, 2025 might be a major year for King fans and a significant one for fans of socio-political commentary in film.