Paramount Drops First Footage from The Running Man (2025)

Paramount Pictures has released the first trailer for The Running Man (2025), Edgar Wright’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same name. The dystopian thriller, published in 1982 under King’s Richard Bachman pseudonym, had previously been adapted as a 1987 action film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Running Man is an earlier Bachman-era title than 2025’s other King adaptation, the film The Long Walk, based on the 1979 novel of the same name. The new Running Man trailer is out now and seems to suggest that Wright’s film will be a much more faithful take on the novel.

Stephen King published several novels in the late 1970s and early 1980s under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. King was “outed” as the true author of the Bachman works in 1984, but not before several of those books became enduring classics in their own right. 1982’s The Running Man was one of those books and, according to King, was written in one week.

Set in a totalitarian United States on the brink of collapse, the 2025 film’s world is similar to King’s—well, similarly dystopian. A newscast takes place during the nation’s ongoing propaganda campaign while virtual advertisements are plastered across cityscapes.

Ben Richards is a husband and father living in a government housing complex called “Co-Op City” with his pregnant wife and ailing daughter. The family struggles financially and socially: Richards is blacklisted and has been unable to find a job. The televised national game show called The Running Man is set to offer 12 hours of live airtime and a $1 million first prize. Ben decides to play the game. Contestants on The Running Man, called Runners, are chased and hunted by pro-assassins called Hunters and live-streamed to a home-bound public.

The more fiscally challenged the contestant, the more the audience cheers and jeers. The main goal of the game is simple: If a contestant can make it to the end of the 30th day of the competition, they win $1 billion. No one has ever come close to that amount: The current record is 197 hours. Contestants are paid $50,000 a day for every day they survive, and for every Hunter they “terminate with extreme prejudice,” cash prizes are also offered.

The Recording Industry Association of America declared Ben Richards an enemy of the state. The nation’s police force, government agents, and its Hunters are sent to chase him and stop him from winning the competition. He is given a 12-hour head start and sent out on the streets on foot.

In the book, Richards, described as “scrawny” and “pre-tubercular,” does surprisingly well, but as fans of King’s novels know, there are seldom happy endings in his books.

The 1987 action film deviates from the plot of the book. While the setting and the basic concept of a live-streamed killing competition remain, the 1987 version was pure late ‘80s sci-fi action. Schwarzenegger’s Ben Richards was much more of a pumped-up hero than King’s skinny and desperate lead character. The film was fast-paced, light-hearted, action-packed, and gizmo-heavy.

Wright has been attached to the project since 2017, when he announced that he had read The Running Man for the first time. In 2021, Paramount picked up the project, and Wright was on board to write with Michael Bacall. In an interview with The Playlist, Wright said he thought of King’s book as “pretty dystopian and satirical, with some very cool action moments in it. So, I didn’t want to do a crazy remake of that previous movie. I just wanted to make a film that felt as close to the spirit of that novel as I could.”

The first look at the film has just been released, with Wright and Bacall remaining on board. The film stars Glen Powell as Ben Richards and Josh Brolin as Dan Killian, the producer of The Running Man. Killian eventually coerces Richards into competing and being a contestant on his show after much resistance.

Lee Pace stars as Evan McCone, the lead Hunter on The Running Man. Ben Richards’ wife, Sheila, is played by Jayme Lawson. Colman Domingo stars as the on-screen host of the competition, Bobby Thompson. Michael Cera plays Bradley Throckmorton, a rebel character. William H. Macy, David Zayas, Emilia Jones, Karl Glusman, Katy O’Brian, and Daniel Ezra complete the cast.

The Bachman Universe Returns

Fans of Stephen King’s Bachman era works have much more to look forward to in 2025. In addition to The Running Man, the same year sees another of King’s dystopian thrillers and competition films being adapted to the screen. The Long Walk is a Bachman-era book by King, first published in 1979 and being adapted for the screen for the first time in 2025.

The film was given a September 12, 2025, release date, while The Running Man will debut two months later on November 7.

For King fans, 2025 will be a massive year. Both films deal with themes of state violence and inhumanity, media as propaganda and exploitation, the systems that control us, and the price we are willing to pay for survival. For those who worry that entertainment, capitalism, and our capacity for empathy and violence conflict, 2025 may also prove to be an interesting year.