Glen Powell Stars in Edgar Wright’s Dystopian Running Man

Paramount Pictures has just dropped the first trailer for Edgar Wright’s The Running Man (2025). As a significant reimagining of the Stephen King dystopian classic, originally published in 1982 under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, Wright’s film seeks to recapture the more intense, satirical tone of the original. The Running Man was most recently adapted as a feature film in 1987, an Arnold Schwarzenegger action piece with flashes of the original’s manic energy but without its emphasis on desperation and futility.

Stephen King published several books under the pseudonym Richard Bachman during the late 1970s and early 1980s, often releasing his Bachman titles within a few months of their King counterparts. King was unmasked as the author behind the Bachman novels in 1984, although The Running Man remained one of the more popular of that series. King completed the novel in just one week; in the story, an authoritarian U.S. is brought to the brink of ruin by The Running Man, a murderous reality game show.

Ben Richards is a manual laborer and divorced father of one living in “Co-Op City” with his wife and his chronically ill daughter. Already blacklisted and unable to find work, Richards takes a chance by appearing on The Running Man, the highest-rated television show, and a program where runaway contestants are hunted by a group of hired assassins known as Hunters. The chase is broadcast to an adoring and cruel audience that watches from their living rooms. Ben is labeled a traitor and fugitive of the state, and begins with a 12-hour head start. His capture or survival depends entirely on his wits.

The Running Man operates on a simple premise: avoid being killed by Hunters for 30 days, and win $1 billion. The contestant with the longest recorded survival time is “Hunter,” at 197 hours. Contestants will take any cash they can get; surviving an hour will net a contestant a sum of money, and killing a Hunter will provide a bonus. The runner also receives a monetary value for every Hunter dispatched, a slight incentive to do more than simply trying to stay alive. Ben Richards manages to do better than most; in a turn that may come as a surprise to some King readers, he stays alive quite well for a while—but it’s safe to say he doesn’t end up very happy.

The 1987 adaptation changed many of the book’s finer points and major beats. While it uses the base setup of the government-produced murder game as seen on television, it steps hard into the realm of science fiction, full of late-1980s movie star action and blockbuster filmmaking of the era. Ben Richards, for one, became a visual replication of his costar Arnold Schwarzenegger, which is to say a much larger and more buff version of himself than King’s original, described as “scrawny” and “pre-tubercular.” But the film’s over-the-top approach was fun and ridiculous, if largely ignoring the book’s bleak and biting satire.

Edgar Wright has been linked to The Running Man project since as early as 2017, when Wright himself stated he would be interested in directing the film. In 2021, Wright was officially greenlit by Paramount, and he would partner with frequent collaborator Michael Bacall on the film. Wright and Bacall have promised to be truer to the heart and tone of King’s original novel, while maintaining the sense of fast-paced suspense and social critique that Stephen King does so well.

The new trailer for the film looks to have followed that exact path. While the original cast of the book is in place, Glen Powell is set to star as Ben Richards, a less charming rogue and more desperate survivor. Josh Brolin has been cast as Dan Killian, the show’s creator and host, who toys with Richards before the show and the events that make him sign up for the game. As the broadcast game goes on and Richards finds a way to connect with the audience, he becomes a viral hit and a target.

Lee Pace rounds out the new casting as Evan McCone, the lead Hunter for the event and the one tasked with tracking Richards down and making sure he is terminated. Jayme Lawson will portray Richard’s wife, Sheila, while Colman Domingo takes on the role of Bobby Thompson, the TV host for the actual Running Man show. Michael Cera will also be seen in the film, in the interesting role of Bradley Throckmorton, a rebel on the side of Ben Richards. The rest of the cast includes William H. Macy, David Zayas, Emilia Jones, Karl Glusman, Katy O’Brian, and Daniel Ezra.

It’s unclear if Wright and Bacall will be taking the film to the level of grittiness and bleakness that King is so well-known for. But if the film sticks to the trailer, audiences can expect something closer to the original work while still getting the pulse-pounding elements of its contemporary adaptation.

Fans of King’s Bachman work will have more to look forward to this year than just The Running Man. King also wrote another dystopian competition novel, titled The Long Walk, in 1979. The Long Walk will also be released in 2025, with a slated release date of September 12, followed shortly by The Running Man on November 7.

Both stories speak to the topics of government oppression, the power of televised violence, and the high cost of survival, so 2025 is shaping up to be an event year for Stephen King—and the future looks very stark in that regard.