Much has been said and written recently around The Running Man, including Stephen King’s original novel (1982), the initial film adaptation (1987) and the remake movie of 2025. These are all different adaptations of the same story, but one that resonates for the times that we’re currently living in.
This new film adaption is true to the original plot, in that it charts the story of blue-collar worker, Ben Richards (now played by Glen Powell, previously played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) and his efforts to save his wife and young child from poverty by participating in a popular and dystopian game show to win a cash prize.
This game show is titled The Running Man, and it involves contestants trying to win financial and societal redemption by evading capture for 30 days. To win a purse of $1 billion they must ultimately avoid death by the “hunters” (who are as dangerous as they sound), all under the gaze of a public audience who are encouraged to help track down these contestants.
The Richards character stands for the downtrodden masses, a victim of corporate greed in a near future where America is governed by an authoritarian media network— they pump out trashy and exploitative content to placate the masses.
Richards, through his own agility and ability manages to evade capture and “wins” the show, despite the network persuading him to join their side as a “hunter”. All the while, he’s rising up against this authoritarian rule.
The film has performed semi-well at the box office, but critical response and indeed much of what has been written about this new adaptation of the story, is that in the current political climate, such tales of a dystopian future feel too much like real life: too familiar and too now.
Some of this coding is deliberate; the original novel was set in 2025 and to remake and re-release it this year is a statement, no doubt. The director Edgar Wright being British and the principal filming being set in the UK also add a documentary grittiness that was not so present in the original movie adaptation.
The theme of surveillance through technology and ever-present screens runs continually through changing narratives that reference our deepfake, AI-driven culture.
The nullification of the masses fed on lowbrow and continuous content seems all too familiar.
Questions remain, though, around how much of the original novel’s message has been altered. This is, after all, mainstream cinema, and like its predecessor, both films have been made by major Hollywood studios.
These studios could be seen and read as major media conglomerates that have designs on the modern world.
This altering is evident with aspects of the film having been changed from the much darker book to a more feel-good narrative for cinema—most notably the ending. The original book, then, is better, as it shows the original version of the story that hasn’t been altered or been made “safer” than the two films would have you believe.