Stephen King’s ‘The Running Man’ Relaunch: Everything To Know So Far About The Glen Powell-Starring Film

If you’ve lost track of how many Stephen King adaptations are currently on the way to screens, then you are not alone. If you also feel like Glen Powell is everywhere right now, that’s alright, too. Between the two of them, there’s an It prequel series, a Twister followup, and a Salem’s Lot reboot (along with much more) on the way, but what if their combined energies arrived within a project?

It’s happening. Powell has been cast in a refresh of 1987’s The Running Man movie, which seems fitting because Arnold Schwarzenegger was previously everywhere at once, too. Let’s talk about what to expect from this project.

Plot

Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Shaun of the Dead) will direct this Paramount Pictures project more than three decades after the original film (helmed by Paul Michael Glaser) substantially retooled Stephen King’s novel.

That book, which was set in 2025, was published via King’s Richard Bachman pseudonym and followed Ben Richards, who has little financial recourse under an authoritarian regime in a dystopian world and finds himself signing up for the Games Network’s The Running Man TV show. His goal? To purchase medicine for his ailing child. The price? Compete in the face of almost certain death while being hunted by actual Hunters, but if he miraculously succeeds? A billion dollars will be the prize. The book’s ending, however, will probably never be filmable, not in the 1980s or in a post-9/11 world, given that Richards crashes an airplane into Games Network’s headquarters.

As for the original film, the setup is different (and the tone is wildly different) with Richards being forced to compete alongside a group of fellow labor camp prisoners and fight former reality-TV victors. As Variety reports, Glen Powell has indeed been cast in the lead role to rework the cult-favorite film in some way. And it’s no wonder why this has been a goal: the bonkers plot has actually seemed increasingly conceivable and might hit even more strikingly for a 2020s audience. Will there be Schwarzenegger-style one-liners spilling from the too-charismatic Glen Powell’s mouth, too? God, I hope so.

With that said, we do not know whether this will be a “remake,” “reboot,” “reimagining,” “reinvention,” or if it will simply be a story that exists in the same world as the 1987 movie. So, stay tuned there.

Powell’s casting is new (and he has proven himself an asset in courting 1980s vibes), but as Deadline revealed back in 2021, Wright has been attached since 2017 after being wooed by producer Simon Kinberg:

Kinberg brought the idea to Emma Watts, based on their long relationship, and then Kinberg courted Wright. While the filmmaker is very selective, the prospect of a new The Running Man is one that has intrigued him; to the point that when asked if he could remake any film, he would choose that one. This was back in 2017. Now it has become real.

What does Schwarzenegger think of the entire affair? No official word exists on the most recent developments, but a decade ago, he was excited about the prospect of a The Running Man sequel, which obviously has not happened yet.

Cast

Glen Powell, need we say more? Let’s dreamcast Stanley Tucci as a TV exec, Walton Goggins as MC, and Frank Grillo as a baddie of some variety. Why not.

Release Date

There’s no earthly way to precisely predict when this remake will arrive, but Paramount probably wants to strike while the Glen Powell is hot, so to speak. 2025?

Trailer

Since a remake trailer cannot exist yet, let’s relive the 1987 version, which arrives complete with an “I’ll Be Back.”