It's Showtime

Move over, Arnie... It's Glen Powell's turn to tackle The Running Man

- WORDS: ADAM TANSWELL

FOR STEPHEN KING fans, Edgar Wright promises audiences the real deal when The Running Man is released in cinemas later this year. King’s original novel - published under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman in 1982 - was adapted into an Arnold Schwarzenegger-led movie in 1987, but the plot raced wildly away from the source material. Wright pledges that his 2025 big-screen vision of the story will be much more faithful to the book.

“King’s novel was one of my favourites as a teen, but the real story has never been told the way it was written,” explains Wright. “When I got the opportunity to make this film the way that I’ve always seen it, I jumped right in and didn’t look back!”

Speaking to a super-hyped industry crowd at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, the British filmmaker admits he’s had his eyes on the project for decades. “Over the years, journalists would repeatedly ask me what movie I would most like to remake, and I would always say The Running Man. I think it even goes back to interviews for Shaun Of The Dead. That’s why I immediately said yes when an email arrived from [producer] Simon Kinberg asking if I had any interest in remaking it.”