Glen Powell Headlines Edgar Wright’s 2025 Running Man

Paramount Pictures has just released the official trailer for The Running Man (2025), Edgar Wright’s upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s 1982 dystopian thriller novel of the same name. King’s novel was also adapted into the Arnold Schwarzenegger-led action movie of the same name in 1987, but as the new trailer makes clear, Wright’s film is aiming to be much closer to the source material.

Published under his pseudonym Richard Bachman, King’s 1982 novel The Running Man is a satirical, action-packed glimpse at a totalitarian future America. But while it shares some elements with the Schwarzenegger-starring action flick of the same name, Wright’s version will be much more faithful to King’s novel.

In 1984, King’s use of the pseudonym Richard Bachman was revealed after a journalistic investigation drew parallels between Bachman’s work and King’s. The Running Man was one of five King-authored novels that Bachman published in the late 1970s and early ’80s. (King kept the secret for so long in part because publishers were turning down The Running Man, mistakenly judging it to be overlong, a common critique of Bachman’s other novels.)

The Running Man is a violent, twisted game show where a man on the run from society (the Runner) is stalked by a team of professional assassins (the Hunters). Ben Richards is a “Co-Op City” resident and working-class family man whose wife and daughter live together in an apartment building. But when Ben’s daughter falls gravely ill, he struggles to work and feed his family because he’s been blacklisted from his former career as an investigative reporter.

By a strange stroke of luck, a copy of the newspaper listing the Running Man contestants and the prize for the next day lands on his doorstep. In one of the most desperate acts of a desperate man, Ben signs up for the next game and vies to become the first person to make it 30 days without being caught. The Running Man is the highest-rated television show, and as Ben sets out on his adventure, he is given 12 hours to get as far away from the Hunters as possible.

Paramount’s 1987 movie adaptation of The Running Man changed the setting of the story from 2025 to a more open-ended near-future. But the film also changed the focus of the story from a bleak commentary on power and violence into a sci-fi action blockbuster that emulated the blockbuster excesses of the late 1980s. In the film, Ben Richards was pure muscle and determination, played by Schwarzenegger at the peak of his powers—nothing like the original novel’s scrawny, “pre-tubercular” description of Richards. (When writing the script, the filmmakers decided that there was no reason for Richards to be desperate to earn $1 billion when he could simply walk away from his Hunter chases and live a life of luxury.) The film retained the basic idea of a live-action game show with Hunters chasing down Runners, but that was where the similarities to King’s novel ended.

The film was loud and had some fun, with a gadget-heavy action aesthetic typical of the era. But where King’s novel was sharp, satirical, and emotional, Paramount’s movie was all surface and special effects.

Edgar Wright, who has directed films like Shaun of the Dead, Baby Driver, and Last Night in Soho, first expressed interest in The Running Man back in 2017. Paramount Pictures gave the project the green light in 2021, pairing Wright with co-writer Michael Bacall. With Bacall on board to help pen the script, Wright and company would be closer to King’s vision, promising a film that’s both more faithful to the novel and able to showcase Wright’s usual style of filmmaking.

This week’s official trailer for The Running Man leans into the gritty, violent aesthetic the team teased earlier this year in the first-look photos. The Runner in the film is played by Glen Powell, and as the footage shows, his Richards will be a long way from the smiling beefcake of Schwarzenegger’s performance. Josh Brolin plays Dan Killian, the show’s charming, charismatic, and amoral producer who entices Ben to sign up for the next day’s game.

As Ben’s fame and ability to avoid the Hunters make him a popular hero with the people, his notoriety makes him a more important target of the state. Lee Pace plays Evan McCone, the lead Hunter on Ben’s trail. Jayme Lawson plays his wife Sheila, while Colman Domingo plays Bobby Thompson, the game show host. Michael Cera appears in a small role as rebel Bradley Throckmorton, but the rest of the cast members have yet to be announced. William H. Macy, David Zayas, Emilia Jones, Karl Glusman, Katy O’Brian, and Daniel Ezra all have roles in the film, too.

It’s too soon to tell whether Wright and Bacall will go for King’s famously bleak ending, but from what we’ve seen, this will not be a particularly hopeful movie about hopelessness.

Fans of King’s Bachman Books Have More on the Horizon

Fans of King’s Bachman work can mark two films on the calendar in 2025. Another of King’s dystopian competition novels is The Long Walk, which is also in the process of becoming a movie and will hit screens in 2025. The Long Walk, which King wrote in 1979, will be released on September 12, while The Running Man arrives in theaters on November 7.

Both stories are about government-sanctioned cruelty and media manipulation through spectacle. And in 2025, audiences may have plenty to think about as they consider where our entertainment, capitalism, and ability to empathize intersect.