The Running Man

What is strange when revisiting The Running Man today is not the Lycra or the foam-filled future, but the way the film confidently understands television as both a narcotic and a stick. Director Paul Michael Glaser does not so much construct a world as he erects a stage where audiences are the script and the studio audience is the judge and executioner. That's why the performance that sticks in the memory is not only Arnold Schwarzenegger's granite charisma as Ben Richards, but also Richard Dawson's silky menace as Damon Killian, a host who treats human lives like advertising slots and understands that a well-placed cutaway shot can sanitize anything. Steven E. de Souza's script simplifies politics—the entertainment division of the Justice Department, the home game, the gleefully macabre door prizes—because the target isn't politics, but the anesthesia of spectacle. And when Arnold Schwarzenegger cracks a joke after eliminating a Stalker, the line is not only intended for the audience within the diegesis, it's also bait for us. If you laugh, it's because you've already set foot in Killian's studio.

As an action movie, the film presents itself as an anthology of the bosses of muscular America. The sets follow one another in thematic waves: Subzero, all hockey blade and brute force, played by Professor Toru Tanaka; Buzzsaw, a tough guy armed with a chainsaw and excessive confidence, played by Gus Rethwisch; Dynamo, a lyrical terror in a lightbulb-shaped suit, played by Erland Van Lidth; Fireball, napalm and arrogance, played by Jim Brown; and the meta-showman Captain Freedom, with his trademark smirk intact, played by Jesse Ventura. Each is eliminated by his own gadget, a comic book justice broad enough to be understood even by the most uninitiated viewers, and each death gives rise to another wink. Around them, the texture is a time capsule: Paula Abdul-esque formations, synth pulses that practically announce Harold Faltermeyer in the booth, commercial breaks that resemble armed parodies. If the “400-block play zone” continues to look like the same corners shot from new angles, it almost works; the place is not a world, it's a set, and this society has forgotten the difference.

The secondary faces maintain the channel-surfing vibe. Maria Conchita Alonso gives Amber Mendez a rigid narrative arc, from spectator to witness, Yaphet Kotto and Marvin J. McIntyre add a working-class counterweight to the thread of resistance, and the cameos—Mick Fleetwood, Dweezil Zappa—underscore how celebrity functions as camouflage and currency in this universe. But the film's most effective idea is also the most obvious: spectacle creates accomplices. The show flatters its loyal viewers, outsources conscience to a studio comedian, and markets cruelty like soda. Richard Dawson is the linchpin: watch how he transitions from nicotine backstage to heat on the air, how he easily turns a prisoner into a promotional spot. That's why the finale hits home: Ben Richards doesn't just beat Killian, he beats him on television, in the only courtroom this country still recognizes.

The friction arises when satire and showmanship collide. Ben Richards smiles a little too broadly after certain expeditions; the camera, which cuts around the impacts to protect the seams, invites you to savor what it purports to chastise. This contradiction—condemning bloody sport while selling the spectacle—is inherent in the film. Yet the film's prescience continues to earn it praise. Years before reality TV formats became staples of programming schedules, before deepfakes made visual fraud commonplace, before politicians blurred the lines with presenters, “The Running Man” understood how quickly a nation could be conditioned to confuse ratings with truth. It's not Paul Verhoeven's cold scalpel, and it lacks James Cameron's rigor in constructing its universe, but as a brilliant distorting mirror, it remains disturbingly accurate. The joke is big, the targets are even bigger, and you don't have to squint to see the contours of our present in the neon lights of 1987.

It's worth remembering the original text published by Stephen King under the pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1982, a concise and furious novel that races along on a countdown and keeps Ben Richards close to reality. In the book, Richards is thin, exhausted, and desperate enough to sign up for the game to pay for his young daughter's medical care; he is given a head start, and the entire country becomes the arena. The Games Network's hunters track him through crowds and bus stations, and every hour he survives increases the reward. It's a road novel and a manhunt, more paranoid and more itinerant than the film, and its ending is not so much the triumphant curtain call of the film as a dark climax that turns the network's tools against it. The book's pace—its breathless countdown, televised confessions, sickening voyeurism—makes the satire feel less like a sermon and more like a fever dream. Where the film confines the horror to a studio labyrinth, the novel lets it breathe our air, which is why the new film adaptation promises to be different, even if the synopsis seems identical.

This brings us to the next adaptation, a project that Edgar Wright has undertaken with the stated goal of being much more faithful* to Richard Bachman's novel. The new film stars Glen Powell as Ben Richards, Josh Brolin as producer-antagonist Dan Killian, and Colman Domingo, who, according to some reports, will host the show itself, alongside a cast that includes Lee Pace, Emilia Jones, Michael Cera, William H. Macy, Daniel Ezra, Katy O'Brian, Karl Glusman, Jayme Lawson, David Zayas, and Sean Hayes. Filming took place in the UK, with Chung Chung-hoon behind the camera and Paul Machliss editing. It wrapped in late March 2025, and the first trailer was released on July 1. Paramount has set a November 7, 2025, theatrical release date. The initial positioning is revealing: a darker tone, a “road movie” structure that places Ben Richards in the real world instead of confining him to a studio, and stunt language that leans toward real danger—Glen Powell has already stated that he insisted that the shots prove that it is indeed him running, à la Cruise. If the promised edit delivers on its promises, expect fewer winks, more sweat, and an ending closer to that of the book.

Which is an intriguing proposition that comes full circle: the 1987 film treated television as a militarized spectacle and was designed accordingly; a 2025 film that pays homage to the book can broaden the scope to the entire country and plunge us back into that uncomfortable space where cameras can be everywhere. It also reinforces the criticism. In the novel, the cruelty of the game is not a backdrop, it's a matter of logistics. Anyone can be an informant. Any storefront can serve as a cover. The money that accumulates by the hour is a metronome that indicates how long a family can afford to hope. It's a very different emotional driver from a boss battle, and it gives Glen Powell the opportunity to shed some of his aura of invincibility and play an intelligent man who is breathless and on the brink of disaster. If Edgar Wright combines this dark impulse with his usual precision in geography and pacing, the result could finally square the circle: a mainstream film that keeps its teeth.

In the meantime, the 1987 artifact continues to fulfill its mission: to offer a VHS-era experience with a satirical aftertaste that lingers longer than expected. Arnold Schwarzenegger's silhouette remains iconic, Richard Dawson's smile remains terrifying, and the film's thesis—that spectacle is the easiest language for power—remains relevant. If the new version manages to convey the book's paranoia and bitter undertones, it won't erase the original, but it will refract it. One was conceived as a game show, the other promises to unfold like a manhunt. Both, in their own way, remind us that when a culture begins to measure truth by applause, the only way to win is to change the channel... or break the TV. And therein lies the problem: we can do neither without admitting how enjoyable spectacle can be to watch.

The Running Man
Directed by Paul Michael Glaser
Written by Steven E. de Souza
Based on The Running Man by Stephen King (as Richard Bachman)
Produced by George Linder, Tim Zinnemann
Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, María Conchita Alonso, Yaphet Kotto, Richard Dawson
Cinematography: Thomas Del Ruth
Edited by John Wright, Mark Warner, Edward A. Warschilka
Music by Harold Faltermeyer
Production companies: Braveworld Productions, Taft Entertainment Pictures, Keith Barish Productions
Distributed by Tri-Star Pictures (United States)
Release date: November 13, 1987 (United States), March 16, 1988 (France)
Running time: 101 minutes

Reviewed on September 3, 2025

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