The review embargo has lifted on Edgar Wright’s “The Running Man,” and if warning signs of a tepid upcoming box office weekend weren’t enough to raise alarm bells, then this surely will: we have a CODE RED on our hands.
‘Running Man,’ which lacks the style or directorial voice of Wright’s previous efforts, is — no surprise— getting mixed reviews. The current tallies: 59 on Metacritic and 64% on Rotten Tomatoes. If you didn’t know Wright had directed it, you wouldn’t know he was behind the camera while watching this film.
The tepid response also means that Wright’s last two films — “The Running Man” and “Last Night in Soho” — have been the worst-reviewed of his career. Then again, ‘Running Man’ — a messy bombastic action movie —makes ‘Soho’ look like the “Citizen Kane” of Wright’s filmography.
Based on the original Stephen King novel, “The Running Man” stars Glen Powell in the lead role, alongside Colman Domingo, Katy O’Brian, Josh Brolin, Lee Pace, and Michael Cera. Wright has often said that if he were ever to remake a film, it would be the 1987 original, which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. That version was loosely 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.
Don’t blame leading man Powell for the bad reviews — he does his best. However, between “Running Man,” “Chad Powers,” and “Huntington” (which reportedly hasn’t been testing well), there’s now a lot of pressure on his upcoming J.J. Abrams–directed “Ghost Writer” to deliver the goods next year.
Where Wright goes from here is anybody’s guess. It could be his “Barbarella” remake starring Sydney Sweeney, or the long-rumored sequel his fans have been begging for, “Baby Driver 2,” which has yet to be greenlit (though there’s reportedly a completed script). Maybe he’ll reunite with Simon Pegg — the latter recently teased a new comedy the two have been writing together.
It should be mentioned, “Last Night in Soho” wasn’t necessarily a bad movie (great first half, tepid second), but it only earned $23M worldwide against a $43M budget. Despite that, Paramount decided it was a good idea to let Wright make his biggest and most expensive film yet — a make-or-break moment, as “The Running Man” reportedly cost $110 million to produce.
Will it be a hit? Ticket presales don’t suggest so, and the reviews have only made the situation more complicated.
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