The Running Man (2025)
December 20, 2025
DIGITAL REVIEW:
Paramount;
Action;
Box Office $37.8 million;
$19.99 VOD, $24.99 Sellthrough;
Rated ‘R’ for strong violence, some gore, and language.
Stars Glen Powell, William H. Macy, Lee Pace, Michael Cera, Emilia Jones, Daniel Ezra, Angelo Gray, Jayme Lawson, Katy O’Brian, Martin Herlihy, Debi Mazar, Sean Hayes, Colman Domingo, Josh Brolin.
The 1987 film The Running Man is considered one of the core hits from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s run of action movie successes in the 1980s and 1990s. However, while the film was based on the 1982 novel of the same name by Stephen King (writing under the pseudonym Richard Bachman), it took a lot of liberties with the source material, keeping a few character names and the general idea of a dystopian future where the population is distracted by the allure of deadly game shows.
The book was set in 2025, which made this the perfect year for a fresh look at the material, and director Edgar Wright’s new adaptation of The Running Man is much more faithful to King’s novel than the 1987 film.
The new version stars Glen Powell as Ben Richards, the role played by Schwarzenegger in the original, though he isn’t a rogue cop this time around. As in the novel, Powell’s Richards is a man desperate for a job so he can raise money to treat his sick daughter. In a near future dominated by the Network corporation, he’s been blacklisted from most jobs for leaking secrets about workplace dangers to union activists. As a last resort, he tries to make it onto one of the many game shows produced by the company to placate the masses, the most popular of which is “The Running Man,” in which three ostensibly undesirable members of society have 30 days to survive being tracked down by a team of hunters in exchange for huge cash prizes. The contestants can travel throughout the country to hide (as opposed to the limited arena of Earthquake-damaged Los Angeles in the 1987 film), but citizens are encouraged to report on their whereabouts for cash prizes.
Richards doesn’t want to risk his life for the show, but seen as an ideal candidate by the show’s producer, Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) due to his athletic abilities and his short temper. Since even lasting only a few days could bring more money to his family than the other game shows, Richards agrees, and the hunt begins. The longer he survives, however, the more Richards becomes a symbol of hope for the downtrodden.
Aside from shared themes of corporate power, audience manipulation and the popularity of trash TV, and a prominent visual cameo, Wright’s film mostly steers clear of any association with the original, and its closer adherence to King’s novel tends to nullify any real comparisons between them (the 1987 film was found to have plagiarized a 1983 French film called Le Prix du Danger (The Prize of Danger), based on the 1958 short story The Prize of Peril, which itself shares similarities with King’s novel).
Wright also uses a retro-futuristic aesthetic to depict his dystopian version of America, imagining a potential future that echoes our own world (for instance, the way Network alters Ben’s messages to the audience will be recognizable to anyone who’s seen the AI slop that pops up on the internet), but smartly infuses more of an analog feel that should give the film more of a timeless quality going forward, as if it too were a product of the 1980s trying to predict how technology and politics would unfold.
The film’s mix of satire and action should provide a reasonably entertaining viewing experience for audiences looking for a bit of subversive escapism.
The home entertainment version of The Running Man is accompanied by a trove of extras, starting with an informative commentary from Wright, Powell and co-writer Michael Bacall.
There’s also a slew of behind-the-scenes material that runs more than 100 minutes, contained primarily in four featurettes: the 11-and-a-half-minute “The Hunt Begins” details the efforts to make a new adaptation; the 16-and-a-half-minute “The Hunters and the Hunted” profiles the characters and the performers who play them; the 17-minute “Welcome to The Running Man — Designing The World” explores the film’s retro-futuristic style; and the 29-minute “Surviving the Game: Shooting The Running Man” delves into the action sequences. Supplementing these are a two-minute montage of stunt rehearsals, and a 26-minute compilation of hair, makeup and costume tests for various characters.
Also included are 12 deleted and extended scenes that total 11 minutes, plus eight minutes of the film’s trailers and promotional spots.
More on the fun side are a collection of the videos from the in-universe programming that play on the background video monitors throughout the film. These include eight-and-a-half minutes of “The Americanos,” a parody of “The Kardashians” with Debi Mazar playing the matriarch of a vapid wealthy family whose members are constantly bickering with each other.
There is a two-minute clip from the “Speed the Wheel” game show, in which overweight contestants must run on a giant hamster wheel while answering trivia questions.
And then there is a full array of raw footage from “The Running Man,” including four-and-a-half minutes of footage from the show including a highlight reel, the opening titles and a rules vignette; two-and-a-half minutes of commercials; and 15 minutes of self-tape submissions from various contestants.
Finally there are the two videos from The Apostle, running four-and-a-half minutes, exposing the lies of the Network and “The Running Man.”
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