He’s done pretending to be other people... now he’s just trying to stay alive.
The first trailer for The Running Man, Edgar Wright’s long-awaited adaptation of Stephen King’s 1982 novel, has finally dropped, and it’s as turbocharged and neon-lit as you’d expect from the Baby Driver director.
In this new version, Glen Powell plays Ben Richards, a working-class father who volunteers for a televised deathmatch in a near-future society to win enough money to save his sick daughter.
As cameras follow his every move, he becomes both a national hero and a moving target hunted by professional killers for the audience’s entertainment.
For those who remember 1987’s Running Man, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, the difference is night and day. Paul Michael Glaser’s original was pure excess: violence, Lycra-clad villains with names like Dynamo and Fireball, and a crowd that whooped as bodies burned.
It was all synths and one-liners, more American Gladiators than Black Mirror. Wright’s reboot looks like it’s gunning for something else entirely.
Instead of the glitzy studio arena that dominated the ’87 version, Wright sends his Richards out into the real world - a fractured, surveillance-heavy America that feels much closer to King’s original novel. Gone are the cartoonish Stalkers; in their place are assassins who look uncomfortably plausible.
Wright, who co-wrote the script with Michael Bacall, has described his adaptation as “a road movie inside a nightmare.” Powell’s Ben Richards is no musclebound gladiator but an ordinary man pushed past the limit, trying to outwit the system.
The trailer shows a high-octane spectacle which is part chase thriller, part modern tale about media, fame and survival.
The cast: Josh Brolin as the show’s manipulative producer Dan Killian, Colman Domingo as the sleek TV host, and Emilia Jones, Lee Pace and Michael Cera filling out the supporting ranks. Wright’s trademark visual rhythm - fast cuts, thumping soundtrack, kinetic camera work has a harder edge than usual.
Even King is impressed. The author, whose early novels appeared under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, called the new film “fantastic Die Hard for our time. A bipartisan thrill ride.” King’s relationship with adaptations of his work is famously fraught, and his endorsement is being taken as a serious vote of confidence.
This is a vintage year for him. The Monkey, The Life of Chuck, and The Long Walk have all landed solid reviews, each finding fresh angles on old nightmares. Wright’s version of The Running Man looks set to continue that winning streak.
Early reactions to the trailer have been mostly positive. Fans seem to like Powell’s swaggering take on Richards, while others are cautiously optimistic that Wright will strike the right tone.
A few worry that the film’s glossy style might soften the novel’s brutal edges, though Wright insists it will stay true to its darkness.
The big mystery is the ending. King’s novel famously ends with Richards going out in a blaze of glory, literally, while the ’87 film let Schwarzenegger live to deliver one last quip.
Wright’s version reportedly takes a different path entirely, somewhere between tragedy and triumph. King has signed off on that change too, suggesting the director has found a balance that works. King’s deadly game might finally have found a winner.
The Running Man opens in cinemas on November 14
