With the movie just a month away, Stephen King has hailed The Running Man as “a bipartisan thrill ride”.
Stephen King thinks The Running Man is “a bipartisan thrill ride”.
The upcoming movie will be the second adaptation of King’s 1982 thriller novel of the same name, and as The Running Man nears its November 2025 release, the 78-year-old author has hailed the film as the “Die Hard for our time”.
Taking to X, he wrote: “I’ve seen it and it’s fantastic. DIE HARD for our time. A bipartisan thrill ride.”
The Running Man – which was directed by Edgar Wright – is set in a dystopian future where the poor are hunted for sport on live TV, and sees desperate contestant Ben Richards (Glen Powell) enter The Running Man game to earn money for his sick daughter.
However, as the odds stack against him, Ben discovers survival means turning the game against its creators.
The film also stars Emilia Jones, Michael Cera, Katy O’Brian, Jayme Lawson, Colman Domingo and Josh Brolin.
Wright recently insisted The Running Man was not a remake of the original 1987 movie, and was a closer adaptation of the book.
Speaking with Den of Geek, the Baby Driver creator, 51, said: “It’s clear, having done test screenings, that there are people who have neither read the book nor seen the 1987 film.
“But when it first came to me, I wasn’t interested in doing a remake of the film because there wasn’t any sort of reason to do that. I think the reason to remake a film is if there’s something else in the material.
“So it was never going to be a scene-for-scene literal remake. It was always, in our heads, a new adaptation of the source material.”
Wright added Powell was the perfect actor to play Ben Richards, as his laidback and charismatic persona lent itself to the character’s working-class roots.
He explained: “The important thing with Ben Richards is not that he isn’t tough.
“He’s an out-of-work construction worker, and we make it clear in the movie that he’s worked some of the toughest, s******** jobs and worked outside a lot. So he’s capable, but he’s still not John Wick.
“He’s not a superhero. He’s a dad, and he’s kind of flying by the seat of his pants in the show. He’s on his heels for a lot of the movie, and I thought Glen was just perfect for that.”
Powell, 36, revealed the Late Night in Soho director had met with several other actors for the leading role, though had asserted to Wright that he was the right choice for the job.
The Top Gun: Maverick star said: “I got down to the wire and sent him a really nice text just telling him why, if he hired me, there’d be no other actor that would ever work as hard and put his body on the line more than I would.
“I meant it. So he took a shot on me and hired me for this movie.”
Reflecting on Ben Richards, Powell teased he hoped the character would get audiences “riled up”.
He said: “Ben Richards is a guy who has a very short fuse and is engaged with the world and everything that’s happening with it on that short fuse.
“He’s a bit of an angry guy, and they’re looking at him like, ‘This guy has a short temper and is angry with the world, therefore we can kind of take advantage of him and his situation and make sure that we get viewers riled up.’”
‘Die Hard for our time!’ Stephen King raves about The Running Man
