From King's prophetic vision to Hollywood history, here's everything you need to know before watching Edgar Wright's new thriller! Our countdown includes Stephen King's week-long writing marathon, the plagiarism lawsuit against the 1987 version, the eerie reality TV predictions, and why the Master of Horror himself has given his stamp of approval.
00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the facts about The Running Man that you need to know before you see it.
00:14Number 10. It's based on a 1982 novel by Stephen King.
00:19This was one of King's earlier and shorter novels, released when he was in his mid-30s.
00:23It was the fourth book King published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, a name he'd planned to use long-term.
00:30I've written about this, I'll do it.
00:33However, an enterprising bookstore employee figured out that Bachman was actually King shortly after The Running Man came out.
00:39Believe it or not, he wrote The Running Man in a week.
00:42When I'm working, I work every day, three, four hours, and I try to get those six pages, and I try to get them fairly clean.
00:49At around 220 pages, that's an absolutely ridiculous pace of over 30 pages a day.
00:54Later in life, he described himself during that period as being angry, full of energy, and completely in love with the writing process.
01:01I think the book should be approached with caution by the reader, that the book should be something that's really alive and really dangerous in a lot of ways.
01:15Number 9. It was first made into a movie in 1987. Kind of.
01:19All I've seen is a bunch of low foreheads who think they can change the world with dreams and talk. It's too late for that. If you're not ready to act, give me a break and shut up.
01:28The first film version of The Running Man was directed by Paul Michael Glazer, best known for playing Dave Starsky in the 70s TV show Starsky and Hutch.
01:37It starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as Ben Richards, and it didn't have much in common with the book.
01:41In it, Richards is a police captain, not an ordinary unemployed citizen, and he's framed for massacring civilians.
01:48Instead of being turned loose and hunted across the country, he's confined to a game zone and stalked by assassins in crazy, supervillain-style costumes.
01:56Of course, this gives R&E plenty of opportunities to drop one-liners.
01:59Get set!
02:01Killian. I'll be back.
02:04While the novel is a dark and gritty commentary on authoritarianism and greed, the movie is a more typical over-the-top 80s shoot-'em-up. Reviews were mixed.
02:12Get him out of here! What's the matter, steroids make you deaf? Get him out of here now!
02:20Number 8. The first movie was successfully sued for plagiarism.
02:23You cold-blooded bastard. I'll tell you what I think of it. I'll live to see you eat that contract.
02:29One person who was decidedly not impressed with Glacier's Running Man was French director Yves Boisset.
02:35He released the film Le Prix du Donje in 1983, which was based on a 1958 short story called The Prize of Peril.
02:42Set in the near future, the story revolves around a game show where people are hunted to the death.
02:47That's one of the major premises of King's novel, and it's possible he took inspiration from the story.
02:51Well, I haven't been in show business as long as you have, Killian, but I'm a quick learner, so I'm going to give the audience what I think they want.
03:00The problem was that the 1987 movie was a lot closer to the French film than The King's book.
03:06Boisset sued, and after a years-long court battle, he won.
03:10The studio was forced to pay him 1,500,000 francs, or around half a million dollars in today's money.
03:15Well, that hit the spot.
03:17Number 7. The 1987 movie is a cultural touchstone.
03:20If you've never seen the original movie, you might be surprised to hear that it gets referenced a lot.
03:25Mr. Richards, I'm your court-appointed theatrical agent.
03:30Many shows and movies have borrowed elements of the film, especially the concept of a deadly game show,
03:35and The Running Man has been mentioned in dozens of other pieces of media, from sitcoms to movies to Saturday Night Live.
03:41Brooklyn Nine-Nine has joked about it more than once, and it was even an answer on an episode of Jeopardy.
03:46Now punch both your fists forward at the same time.
03:48Are you making me do The Running Man?
03:50Yeah, the original one, excluding the movie and Stephen King's classic short story.
03:55So, the third iteration.
03:56If you're a gamer, you're probably familiar with the Mortal Kombat character, Sub-Zero.
03:59He was named after one of the movie's assassins.
04:02It's amazing that this otherwise forgettable movie has had such staying power.
04:06I want to say raw deal, but it seems like it could be Commando.
04:09Running Man!
04:10One of Arnold's first big hits, it was The Running Man.
04:13Yes!
04:13Remember Richard Dawson in that one.
04:15Number six, Edgar Wright wanted to make this movie for a long time.
04:18During a Twitter AMA all the way back in 2017, a fan asked director Edgar Wright what movie he'd most like to remake.
04:25His answer, The Running Man.
04:26I had always wanted to kind of remake the book, because I loved the original 80s one,
04:31but it's a very loose adaptation of Stephen King's book, and I was a fan of the book,
04:36and so when this came up with the opportunity of adapting the original novel, I was like, yes.
04:39Another four years passed before the news broke that it was really happening.
04:43After Paramount announced the remake, producer Simon Kinberg got in touch with Wright.
04:47And it was an absolute gift of an email to actually, a project that you'd actually thought about manifest itself in your inbox.
04:55We don't know for sure whether Kinberg knew about Wright's enthusiasm for the project,
04:58but if he did his research, he should have.
05:01Wright is the perfect choice for a violent, satirical, dystopian action movie.
05:05Tell it to The Cleaning Lady on Monday.
05:07What?
05:08Because you'll be dust by Monday.
05:09Films like Baby Driver and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World proved he has the talent to handle a fast-paced thriller like this one.
05:16Number 5.
05:17Glenn Powell really wanted to work with Edgar Wright.
05:20Making this movie wasn't just a dream come true for the director.
05:23The lead actor was pretty excited to be involved, too.
05:25Powell had been dying to work with Wright since he arrived in Hollywood.
05:28Edgar Wright is one of our great filmmakers.
05:31He's been on my vision board, my bucket list, for as long as I can remember.
05:37He happened to run into some Paramount executives while out to lunch, who tipped him off that Wright was working on The Running Man.
05:42Powell then texted Wright, promising to work his butt off if he got the role of Ben Richards.
05:47He must have been pretty convincing, because it worked.
05:49Since then, the two have had nothing but kind words to say about each other.
06:01It's probably a safe bet.
06:02This won't be the last collaboration between Glenn Powell and Edgar Wright.
06:05It's really fun for me to be in film school with a guy who is, like, the greatest film professor ever.
06:10Number 4.
06:11The Running Man is not connected to The Long Walk.
06:14Survive, and you will walk away with a billion new dollars.
06:17These two movies do have a lot in common.
06:19They were both adapted from novels written by Stephen King under the name Richard Bachman.
06:23They both take place in authoritarian dystopias, where people are competing for survival.
06:27They even have both types of movement in their titles, but it's just a coincidence that they were released so close together.
06:43There's no relationship between the stories.
06:45King has written more than 60 books, and most of them have been made into movies.
06:49In fact, The Running Man will be the fourth movie based on King's work to come out this year alone, including The Monkey and The Life of Chuck.
06:55It was only a matter of time before there was an overlap like this.
06:59When this is broadcast for all the states, your inspiration will continue to elevate our gross national product.
07:07We will be number one in the world again!
07:12Number 3.
07:12The book predicted the rise of reality TV.
07:15I always thought this was fake.
07:18Oh, s***!
07:19Feeling pretty real now.
07:21When The Running Man was published in 1982, reality TV barely existed.
07:25Shows like Big Brother, The Real World, and Survivor were still a long way off.
07:30Yet, King envisioned a world where desperate people sign up to humiliate themselves and risk their lives on TV for cash.
07:37You know, I've been thinking about the show.
07:39For the next 30 days, everyone in the country is trying to murder me.
07:44The title of the book refers to the name of the contest that Ben Richards enters, but it's not the only deadly show in the book.
07:50We also have Treadmill to Bucks, which only accepts contestants with serious health issues.
07:55And there's Swim the Crocodiles, Run for Your Guns, and Dig Your Grave.
07:59Modern reality TV hasn't quite devolved this far, yet.
08:02But who knows what the future holds.
08:04Welcome to The Running Man.
08:05Number 2.
08:07The Running Man is Coming Out at the Perfect Time.
08:09You know why they cheered for you down there?
08:12Go, go!
08:14More men!
08:15If you could survive against those goons, so can they.
08:18There are so many parallels between the world of The Running Man and our modern reality, it's almost creepy.
08:23In the book, economic inequality is out of control, forcing people to do desperate things,
08:28and corporations and the media are eager to exploit that desperation.
08:32Don't you get it?
08:34This game is rigged.
08:35Guess we'll find out.
08:36Ben Richards joins the game to afford medical care for his extremely sick daughter,
08:40something many American families can sympathize with.
08:43Violence and authoritarianism are on the rise around the world,
08:46yet there are still brave people resisting government control and fighting police brutality.
08:51I'm gonna come back here and burn this building down.
08:55I promise.
08:56That's the spirit.
08:57And what year does it take place?
08:59You guessed it.
09:002025.
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09:15Number 1.
09:18Stephen King has seen the movie, and he loved it.
09:21Probably the most nerve-wracking part of the production is, um, you know, Stephen King read the screenplay before we started filming.
09:30And, you know, Stephen King, he's like the most famous English teacher in history.
09:35Imagine being a filmmaker and getting to make the movie of your dreams based on a book by one of the most popular authors of all time.
09:41Then imagine the anxiety you feel waiting for that author to see your movie and share his opinion.
09:46Fortunately, we have good news for Edgar Wright and the rest of the cast and crew.
09:50King didn't just like it.
09:51He loved it.
09:52As a fan of his, since I was, like, 11, I was like, oh my god, I can't believe this is happening.
09:57Did he write no notes?
09:58Wait, he loved it, which was, like, kind of, he's been very, very supportive through the process.
10:03He gave Wright's script the seal of approval before shooting began, and he signed off on Glenn Powell as the lead after watching him in Hitman.
10:10In mid-October, King shared the new Running Man trailer on social media and compared the film to Die Hard.
10:15If that's not high praise, we don't know what is.
10:17Right there is why you can win this game.
10:21Do you plan on seeing The Running Man?
10:23What's your favorite Stephen King movie adaptation?
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