Premiere: In Theaters November 14th
Directed by: Edgar Wright
Starring: Glen Powell, William H. Macy, Lee Pace. Emilia Jones, Josh Brolin
The 1987 dystopian film The Running Man, which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger, has become a cult classic, and the movie is a ton of fun. It takes place in a future dystopian world where criminals are given a chance at freedom by participating in a game show where they must run or die. The film is heavy on the satire, and gave Schwarzenegger plenty of one-liners while also giving Richard Dawson his crowning role as the host of the show Damon Killian.
So if they did it right the first time, what’s the point of revisiting the property almost forty years later?
Well, that fact is that the 1987 film took quite a lot of liberties with the source material. It was based on the 1982 Stephen King book (writing as Richard Bachman), and his original version had quite a number of interesting sci fi concepts. I read the book years ago and thought that it would actually make a good television series. Director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) also apparently believed it was ready for a more faithful revival, but he aimed it back at the big screen.
In the book, the contestants in the game show are running for thirty days to win cash prizes, and anybody can hunt them down, not just specialized killers. Wright is sticking with that premise, though he is still going for the big action movie look and feel as the trailer demonstrates. He had the following to say in an interview with Empire Magazine:
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.
As for Glen Powell (Scream Queens) in the Ben Richards role, Wright commented:
I felt it was important to see somebody who hadn’t really done something like this before. It’s similar to Bruce Willis, when he was still the guy from Moonlighting, before he did Die Hard, where that adds to the suspense. Can they make it?
Whether audiences will accept Powell in a role Schwarzenegger made famous remains to be seen.
Trailer:
