Edgar Wright gives his thoughts on franchise filmmaking and spills just a little tea regarding the development of the new The Running Man.
Just a couple of days ago, celebrated British filmmaker Christopher Nolan offered his thoughts on franchise filmmaking, a topic that just keeps cropping up given that it’s been a pretty turbulent year for sequels and cinematic universes.
Now, another respected British filmmaker has popped up to give us their take. Appeared on the HappySadConfused podcast, Cornetto Trilogy auteur Edgar Wright said, “I wish some franchises would have the sense to just take a breather and let people get excited about it again. I feel like there are certain things that I loved that I don’t want to see again, or I don’t want to see them again for a long time.”
Wright would go on to cite James Bond as a franchise that has long understood the value in ‘resting’ its characters to build anticipation for future instalments. As for those grand cinematic universe plans? He’s not a fan:
“One of the problems with film franchises is sometimes when they announce – I’m not mentioning any names or anything – when they announce massive slates of films and TV shows…there’s a danger of killing the golden goose.”
He doesn’t really have to mention names, does he?
On the same podcast, Wright also talked a little about his planned take on The Running Man, an adaptation of Stephen King’s dystopian novella about a futuristic society that throws down-and-outs into a murderous televised contest. It was already adapted once in 1987 as an explosive action vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The project hasn’t even been officially announced yet, but has been in some kind of development for years. We’re really hoping that an announcement from Paramount Pictures is inbound imminently. At any rate, here’s what Wright had to offer:
“The Running Man is in active development. Why is that interesting to me? I like the film, but I like the book more – and they didn’t really adapt the book. Even as a teenager when I saw the Schwarzenegger film, I was like ‘oh, this isn’t like the book at all!'”
As such, when he was asked by Simon Kinberg if he had interest? Well, yes he did.
“Now, that doesn’t mean that it’s easy! But it’s something that we are working on, yes. I’ll tell you that much.”
So there you go. The Running Man would certainly represent a different kind of project for Wright, who seems to want to continue working in as many genres of cinema as he possibly can. If you want an update on today’s other Stephen King-penned project that also happens to focus on a dystopian murder contest, there’s also the news that director Francis Lawrence is taking on an adaptation of the author’s The Long Walk.
