Richards Lives

We can’t go long without another Stephen KingRising to fame with the release of his first book, Carrie, Stephen King is one of the most prolific, and most successful, American authors (in any genre, not just horror). adaptation. The author is prolific, and many of his novels are massive hits that everyone knows about. If you, as a studio say, “we’re making a Stephen King adaption”, whether good or bad you can assume a certain segment of the populace is going to show up. His name has cultural cachet, and that goes double when it’s a remake or sequel to a movie that already came out. People might not care that much about another apocalypse scenario, but when it’s Stephen King, and a new adaptation of The Stand, for example, that becomes something that catches audience attention.

Because of that, it does feel like it was inevitable that we would eventually get a new adaptation of The Running Man. The last version came out in 1987 and did modest numbers at the Box Office. It did, however, find a long tail on home video and regular cable repeats, eventually becoming a beloved, cult hit for the Governator. Now, most King fans will say that they love that movie, even if it is very different from King’s original book (written under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman). And it is. That film is fun and stupid, but its biggest failing is that it takes the idea of a life-or-death, last man standing, reality show competition from King’s novel and then effectively throws out everything else from the story. What fans of King wanted was a film that was closer in story and style to that novel, a new remake that could really tell the story properly.

Enter Edgar Wright, the creative and visionary director who had released a string of fun hits over the years (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Baby Driver). While not every one of Wright’s films became a smash hit upon release (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World had to find its audience on home video), there was no doubt that the director always brought something special to every film he worked on. Working with co-writer Michael Bacall, Wright’s stated goal was to make a “more faithful adaptation”, one truer to King’s source material. His fans also hoped it would have the flash and style that Wright was known for. It felt like a winning combination.

Unfortunately, once the film came out in mid-November 2025, it was immediately ignored and left to die in theaters. Audiences weren’t interested in Wright’s $110 Mil adaptation of King’s novel, especially not once critics began savaging it. People didn’t show up, and the film ended up limping out of theaters having only made $68.6 Mil, making it a total Box Office Bomb. So what happened? Why did a film that seemed like it had such promise fail to garner attention? It’s a combination of a number of reasons, but the simple fact is that what audiences (and critics) wanted from an Edgar Wright adaptation of The Running Man never shows up in the 2025 film. Instead we get something less interesting, less faithful, and far more boring all around.

The film stars Glen Powell as Ben Richards, a down on his luck father just trying to do right by his wife and child. He had been working as a factory laborer, but when he leaked information about shady things going on at the factory, he was fired and blacklisted. Unable to get a job to support his family, or buy the meds needed to help his baby girl get over her flu, Ben has to turn to other means to make money: dangerous game shows. The Freevee Network has a number of shows that could make him a lot of money, assuming he can get out unharmed.

At the Network building, Ben is put through a number of tests, mental and physical. In the end he’s automatically signed up for The Running Man, a show that pits three runners against five highly trained hunters, and their elite team of soldiers. The goal is simple: stay alive for 30 days while the whole country is watching. Every day you live you make more money for your family. If you make it the full 30, you get a massive $1 Billion. But the Network will do everything it can to take you down, and if you aren’t careful you’ll die within hours of the game beginning. It’s kill or be killed on The Running Man.

Functionally the movie starts off about where the book does, with Ben Richards having to make the decision about whether it’s worth his life to be on The Running Man. He takes the job, gets his gear, and heads off for 30 days with danger around every corner. It effectively amounts to a one man show, with Powell having to lead the film via his natural charisma (which he has a lot of), while the film goes through a number of expected beats. He runs, they chase, he escapes, and plenty of action set pieces occur in the process. I don’t want to call it rote, but it certainly isn’t as surprising in its plotting as it could have been.

Part of the issue with the film is that it’s incredibly straight forward. There’s never any question that Richards is a good man, even though he’s prone to fits of rage and violence. Those are always reserved for “bad people”, and when he gets bad it’s an obvious signal that the person he’s mad at is a “bad guy”. Meanwhile, everyone associated with the Network is made to be nothing more than a cartoonish villain, network head Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) especially. There’s a way to give this story nuance and depth (King managed in his novella), but this film never finds it. It’s too cut-and-dried for that level of storytelling.

It also doesn’t have nearly enough action to carry its threadbare story. Say what you will about the 1987 version but that film didn’t skimp on bombast. This movie, by comparison, feels like it’s holding back, never reaching the potential of its concept or the action that could be had. There’s a couple of decent sequences (Ben getting stalked by the Hunters at a flop house is a highlight), but even the best sequences in the film still feel like they’re holding back. We need more, bigger, flashier action here and it never actually arrives.

But then, neither does Edgar Wright’s style. The director is known for his flashy cuts, recurring lines and gags, and music synched up to movement and action, and almost none of that is here. There’s one solid call back, with a line about how many bathrooms are on a private jet, but otherwise, it doesn’t feel like any part of Edgar Wright’s directorial eye made it into the movie. Like the action Wright is, for some reason, holding back here and it drains all the fun out of what could have been a very interesting movie. Honestly, if you hadn’t told me this was an Edgar Wright film I wouldn’t have even realized he worked on it. This feels like work-for-hire and not a proper Wright movie.

It makes me wonder what happened. How does a movie that cost $110 Mil, directed by one of this generation’s great directors, come out like this. The movie feels constrained, safe and sanded down, without any of the spark you’d expect from the source material or Wright’s direction. It’s like the studio saw what Wright was doing and said, “this is going to cost this much, but for you to make it we need you to do x, y, and z things.” And via the power of studio interference, this film ended up being so much less than it could have been.

That certainly would explain why the ending (which I won’t spoil) feels so hollow. It’s a total cop-out ending in comparison to the book, failing to live up to what the story was building towards while giving everyone a studio mandated “safe” conclusion. It sucks, and it drains out whatever good feeling I had for the film. If the ending were truer to the setting and source material that wouldn’t make this film a success, but it certainly would have kept it from feeling like an abject failure.

As it is, The Running Man ‘25 really does feel like a failure. It had so much potential – a good story, great lead actor, and a visionary director – and then it squandered all of it. What could have been the next great King adaptation instead falls apart before it can even get going. Watching the film you can understand why it came and went with little regard from audiences. This isn’t a fresh and vibrant film; it’s a collection of studio notes in theatrical form. We, as audience members, deserve better.