Edgar Wright has been chatting about his upcoming The Running Man movie, and whether it’s more Stephen King than Schwarzenegger.
Ever since Last Night In Soho director Edgar Wright announced that his next film would be an adaptation of The Running Man, speculation has been rife that it will be markedly different from the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie of the same name. Full of entertaining action, it ramped up the camp while also leaning into the pomp and bombast of American game shows.
The Paul Michael Glaser-directed dystopian action flick sidelined some of Stephen King’s source novel’s themes of alienation and media-induced hatred, or at least refined them significantly into something more digestible for a 1980s popcorn-munching audience. So instead, we got Arnie in a Lycra Adidas jumpsuit (pictured, but we’re still not sure how that sponsorship deal transpired) and appearances from pro-wrestlers.
Many have speculated that Wright’s film will instead follow King’s novel more closely and explore some of those ideas with more depth. Casting for the film, which includes Glen Powell as Ben Richards, the titular Running Man, Colman Domingo, Josh Brolin (both in villainous roles) and Love Lies Bleeding's Katy O’Brian in the cast has only served to underline this belief.
Now Wright himself has chipped in to confirm that his film will be a darker and lonelier take, telling Empire that, “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.”
Read more: The Running Man | What might Edgar Wright’s new adaptation of Stephen King’s novel look like?
There are several things that are instantly interesting about this approach, aside from the fact that fans of King’s novel will be pleased to finally see a more faithful take on the source material.
Firstly, it seems like Wright’s ‘road movie’ is going to show us a sizeable slice of his dystopian take on America as Ben Richards moves through each city’s underworld, avoiding the game show’s hunters whilst seeking safe harbour. Unlike the Schwarzenegger version where the action star’s take on Ben Richards was never really in peril, Wright’s characterisation of the world as ‘intense’ and ‘dangerous’ suggests that Powell’s take on the character will be far more vulnerable and human.
Wright seemed to confirm as much, comparing Powell’s performance to Bruce Willis’ career-making turn in 1988’s Die Hard, a film which evolved the action hero archetype of the 1980s by adding a dimension of vulnerability to Willis’ cop who was outgunned, barefoot and very ticked off for the majority of the film.
“I felt it was important to see somebody who hadn’t really done something like this before,” says Wright about casting Powell in the role. “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.”
With The Running Man set for release in November, marketing will surely begin to grind into gear as we get closer to the summer. At that point, we’ll get an opportunity to get a glimpse at the kind of aesthetic Wright – always a visually impressive filmmaker – has crafted for his future American dystopia. We’ll bring you more on this one as we hear it.
