You know what you’re getting with an Edgar Wright film in the best way. But when it comes to the filmmaker’s upcoming action flick The Running Man, honoring a fellow maestro like Stephen King almost became his singular focus.
The Mary Sue spoke with with the director and some of the cast at The Running Man press junket in Los Angeles ahead of the film’s November release. Among other things, we discussed the importance of adapting someone as well-loved and oft-adapted as King to the screen.
“I have loved the book since I was a teenager,” Wright said. “And there were sort of things about it had had stayed with me and were very vivid to me that I wanted to bring to the screen. Because, you know, the 1987 adaptation is a very loose kind of version of the book, I knew that there was like […] so much material that hadn’t been adapted. We wanted to find a way to be as faithful as we could to it. I’ve had the pleasure now of collaborating with Stephen King, who’s one of my heroes. He’d read the screenplay. So. he’d read the screenplay and signed off on it, and loved the screenplay. And that was really important to me and Michael [Bacall]. But then that’s like a blessing and a curse because like, not only do you have to live up to the film in your head, now I have to live up to the movie in his head as well. Now it’s almost like, the entire thing is I can’t let Stephen King down.”
Thankfully, Wright continued, King loved the new adaptation. King told him, “”it’s faithful enough to the book to keep the fans happy, but different enough to make me still excited, or keep me excited.’ That meant the world to me.”
Wright’s commitment paid off on set, according to the cast.
According to Lee Pace, that clear handle of tone and sense of humor starts even before Day One. “Edgar Wright is such a singular director,” Pace told The Mary Sue at the same junket when asked about working with the director. “He sets a tone for the film, like… he knows exactly what he’s doing. The first conversation I had with him was exactly the same as the script [and exactly the same as] the movie I saw last week. He did that. He did what he set out to do. He created a tone and the experience he wants the audience to have on this, like, wild, relentless ride. He’s a craftsman.”
Not every director and artist is like that! Some like to find things spontaneously during the writing, pre-production, filming and/or editing process that make the film what it is. That’s neither the right or the wrong way to tell a story or make art. It’s simply an a choice. Wright is truly an auteur in the sense that his films’ vision comes from him alone, even though filmmaking is inherently a collaborative process. According to Pace, however, despite the need to adhere to Wright’s singular vision, making a movie like The Running Man feels kind of “effortless” and natural.
“As an actor on his set,” Pace continued, “you never feel like you’re being directed. You just kind of feel your way towards the character, and the conversations that you have with him about cinema [and] about what his taste is kind of guide you into the movie he wants to see. There’s something effortless about it. Like, what a dream!”
You can watch our full chat with Pace below:
The Running Man is in theaters November 14.
(featured image: Rob Kim/WireImage)
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