Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright’s new movie adaptation of Stephen King’s The Running Man got its first explosive trailer on Tuesday, showing Glen Powell (Hit Man, Top Gun: Maverick) as titular man on the run Ben Richards.
Wright’s version of The Running Man — which was very loosely adapted for the screen in 1987, with Arnold Schwarzenegger starring — hews closer to King’s original novel. In that dystopian sci-fi novel, set in the far-off year 2025, America’s economy has cratered and the country is run by a totalitarian government. Unemployed and unable to afford healthcare for his daughter, Richards becomes a contestant in the violent, state-sanctioned TV show The Running Man. He is tasked with surviving for 30 days while being hunted by Games Network-employed hitmen and the millions of viewers of The Running Man. Should Richards last the full stretch, he’ll win $1 billion.
The first trailer for 2025’s The Running Man sure seems to follow that plot closely, injecting Wright’s stylistic action and a lot of comedy into the overall grim setting of King’s world. If nothing else, Colman Domingo as Bobby Thompson, the host of The Running Man TV show, looks incredibly fun to watch.
Joining Powell in The Running Man are actors Katy O’Brian, Josh Brolin, Lee Pace, Michael Cera, Jayme Lawson, and William H. Macy. Wright directed from a screenplay co-written by himself and Michael Bacall (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, 21 Jump Street).
The Running Man premieres in movie theaters on Nov. 7 — the same day the next Predator movie, Predator: Badlands, will debut. Sounds like an action-packed double feature day at the cinema to me.
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