The Running Man (dir. Edgar Wright)

by Jack Martin | Nov 12, 2025

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 133 mins

UK Distributor: Paramount Pictures

UK Release Date: 12 November 2025

WHO’S IN THE RUNNING MAN?

Glen Powell, Josh Brolin, Colman Domingo, Lee Pace, Jayme Lawson, Michael Cera, Emilia Jones, William H. Macy, David Zayas, Katy O’Brian, Daniel Erza, Karl Glusman, Simon Haines, Sean Hayes, Sandra Dickinson, George Carroll, Martin Herlihy, Sophie Simnett

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Edgar Wright (director, writer, producer), Michael Bacall (writer), Simon Kinberg and Nira Park (producers), Steven Price (composer), Chung-hoon Chung (cinematographer), Paul Machliss (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

In a dystopian future, a struggling man (Powell) enters a deadly reality TV show…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON THE RUNNING MAN?

Stephen King fans have been eating good this year, with adaptations of the author’s novellas The Life of Chuck and The Monkey both finding their audiences, the It prequel series Welcome to Derry scoring high among viewers, and a long-mooted adaptation of The Long Walk – published way back when King was still using the pseudonym “Richard Bachman” – is among the best-reviewed films of the year. As if we weren’t spoiled enough, Edgar Wright now presents his own take on King’s darkly satirical dystopian novel The Running Man, and it’s about as nuts as that explosive combo sounds.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that King’s novel (also published under “Bachman”) has hit the screen, with a 1987 Schwarzenegger-led adaptation that really took the basic concept and a few names for an otherwise straightforward Arnie vehicle. Wright’s version, which he also wrote with his Scott Pilgrim vs. The World co-scribe Michael Bacall, not only adheres closer to the source material, but also has a tough challenge for itself: the idea of a deadly reality show competition, once novel at the time of King’s, erm, novel, has since been used in everything from The Hunger Games to Death Race to Paul Feig’s recent streaming caper Jackpot! as relevant commentary on the dangers of excessive televised media. How can a new version of The Running Man, one of the earliest pioneers of such a concept, feel fresh in a world where you could name at least half a dozen movies or shows like it?

Wright doesn’t really have an answer, quite frankly because he isn’t doesn’t seem too concerned with any of that. He’s much more interested in just going for broke and giving the audience a rambunctious and highly entertaining time, which he does with his typical hyperactive style that lends an enjoyable lens to a now-familiar tale. It may not make the concept feel wholly fresh once more, but Wright at least has the decency to put a colourful bowtie on it and let it swirl for everyone’s amusement.

Like the original novel, The Running Man is set in a bleak future where America appears to be run entirely by network executives who dilute the airwaves with mind-numbing reality shows, one of them being the titular competition where contestants must survive thirty days of being hunted by professional hunters and go home with life-changing riches should they survive. The show gets a brand-new candidate in the form of Ben Richards (Glen Powell), a blacklisted worker who out of desperation to pay for his sickly child’s medicine decides to apply for The Running Man, and before he knows it, he’s left to roam the streets and hide wherever he can from anyone who has the capability to report him for a hefty reward, and send a bunch of militants at the behest of top executive Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) to finish the job. Ben’s angry resilience, though, begins to turn him into an underground hero railing against the corrupt totalitarian regime, putting further pressure on Killian and his hunters to control the public’s perception of him while still putting on solid televised entertainment.

Those familiar with Wright’s filmmaking style won’t be too surprised to find that The Running Man is about as subtle as a brick to the balls. It’s all very in-your-face, as Wright taps into his inner Paul Verhoeven to present a vulgar and derelict world that is rife with trigger-happy militants whose bullets outweigh their brains (keep an eye out for how a couple of would-be assailants all too proudly misspell the word “militia”), while nobody seems to care about censorship anymore as people can be brutally executed while being as loudly and proudly profane as they want without so much as an audible bleep. More than many of his other films, Wright lets himself loose like a kid on a sugar rush in a sweet shop, and sometimes that can be a pleasure to behold – especially in a number of lively action scenes that play with set design, soundtrack choices and fast-paced editing – while at other times it can leave you exhausted as it throws so much madness at you with barely a moment to take it all in.

That’s part of the charm, however, as is the heavy social commentary that The Running Man tends to spread about the dangers of media overconsumption. Rather than bog itself down with endless speeches that almost feel as though Powell (on top charismatic form here) is talking directly to our current Fox News and Kardashian-worshipping society, save for one or two blatant bits of soapboxing towards the end, the film doesn’t even pretend that it’s got anything profound to say, or at least in a way that’s different to the numerous other similar shows and films before it. For Wright, it’s a mere backdrop for all sorts of chaos to unfold, and again he’s got such an energetic approach to filmmaking that he can just about have his cake and eat it when it comes to conveying the themes of King’s original novel through his trademark rhythmic wit and playfulness.

That said, while the parallels between this fictional dystopia and our own reality are more than apparent, the way that Wright and Bacall’s script approaches it is somewhat uneven. This is a film that really throws you in the deep end along with Powell’s Ben as it takes you and him on a whistlestop tour through this world and its crazy media empire, to where you almost struggle with taking in every introduction of a new character or following the very specific rules in place. The film calms down once The Running Man itself gets underway, and it becomes easier to tell what exactly is going on, but initially it is slightly clumsy in its world-building during its overly quickened first act. The ending, while closer to the book (no spoilers for either here), is also a bit of a cop-out, with one particular development screaming of being added during reshoots because the powers that be didn’t want things to go in the direction it originally established for itself, which is a shame given how adventurous and even ambitious a lot of Wright’s preceding vision seemed to be.

It’s far from perfect, and perhaps not the year’s best Stephen King adaptation about lead characters consistently on their feet within a televised context (that distinction remains with The Long Walk). But Edgar Wright’s The Running Man, for all its goofy messiness, remains a fun time without requiring you to use your brain too hard, much like the in-movie barrage of reality show content.

SO, TO SUM UP…

The Running Man sees Edgar Wright bring his trademark energetic style to a more faithful version of Stephen King’s novel that, despite an uneven script and an exhausting feeling one gets from simply enduring parts of it, remains a fun enough watch.