How’s everyone feeling about this one? The latest sneak peek has shades of “Die Hard” and “Home Alone,” and I’m cautiously intrigued.
Here’s a new trailer for Edgar Wright’s “The Running Man,” based on the original Stephen King novel. Glen Powell takes on the lead role. The rest of the cast includes Colman Domingo, Katy O’Brian, Josh Brolin, Lee Pace and Michael Cera.
Wright has often said that if he were to remake any film, it would be the 1987 original, which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. That version was inspired by King’s novel and followed Ben Richards, a wrongly accused man forced to survive a deadly, dystopian game show set in 2025, while being hunted by professional killers on live TV.
Then again, Wright won’t be completely faithful to the book. He recently told Film Stories that his film will diverge from both the original book and the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. The novel’s grim finale — where Richards crashes a plane into the game’s headquarters — was ruled out early on in Wright’s process for being too evocative of 9/11, while the ’87 version’s triumphant ending also won’t return. Wright crafted an entirely new conclusion, one that even King himself had to approve of after reading the script.
This will be Wright’s first feature since 2021’s “Last Night in Soho,” which received the most divisive reviews of his career. Still, the filmmaker maintains a fiercely loyal fanbase thanks to cult favorites like “Shaun of the Dead,” “Baby Driver,” and “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.”
Wright has always been something of a cinematic marmite — a director whose kinetic style, rapid-fire editing, and pop-culture-drenched sensibilities thrill some and exhaust others. That hyperactive visual language seems to be all over this latest one.
As for Powell, he seems to be having a moment—the kind of slow Hollywood takeover that sneaks up on you until you suddenly realize he’s in just about everything. From rom-coms to war dramas, Powell’s carved out a niche as the charming, slightly cocky everyman with old-school movie star charisma.
“The Running Man” hits theaters on November 7, 2025.
Criterion's December lineup has some great additions to the library, but the title that jumped out at me is Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," which officially joins the Collection on December 8.