‘This one is the full meal’: Glen Powell and Edgar Wright brought me (and all of CinemaCon) a first look at ‘The Running Man’
My most anticipated film of 2025 is The Running Man. Luckily, I was sitting in the audience of CinemaCon when the filmmakers debuted the first look at Edgar Wright’s adaptation
As someone currently in the middle of reading the Stephen King novel, I was absolutely thrilled to see Glen Powell’s Ben Richards literally doing the same things he does in the book to taunt those watching him on the Free Vee. Yes, that scene where he flips off those watching and is in his underwear is in the trailer. And I did gasp “that’s in the book” out loud.
The trailer itself did a great job of showing how Wright and co-writer Michael Bacall’s version of The Running Man is going to be different from the 1987 film. The Arnold Schwarzenegger version is not really an adaptation of the novel but more of a movie that takes the ideas of King’s novels and does whatever it wants with it. Which isn’t a bad thing but it does make me excited to see what Wright has in store.
He said at the presentation that this was a novel he read when he was younger and became obsessed with and Powell said that their take on The Running Man is going to bring us the “full meal.” And if that trailer is any indication of it, we’re in for one wild ride (run).
Filming had just wrapped last week so the trailer, according to Wright, was the rough cut. And if that’s the rough cut, we’re in for the run of our lives because it was absolute perfection. And did include a masked Lee Pace who said one line and I knew instantly who it was. But all of it really just captured my attention.
There is nothing like a good Stephen King adaptation
Wright and Bacall’s version has promised from the start to be more accurate to the book. While I could see some changes right out the gate in the trailer, it already felt more in line with King’s novel (published under his pen name Richard Bachman). With Colman Domingo’s host of The Running Man giving us his over the top best and Josh Brolin’s producer of the game, the darkness of The Running Man is there.
But it is Glen Powell’s energy as Ben Richards that sold me. In the book, Ben is aggressive and rude to the public watching his games but his love for his family is what made me care so much about him. That’s what I saw shine through in his performance in the trailer. He was constantly flipping off the cameras, screaming about them filming him, but had the softness in his performance for Sheila (Jayme Lawson) and their daughter, Cathy.
I know that I have written a lot about this movie and how excited I am but actually seeing the trailer for it proved I was right to constantly share my excitement for Powell and Wright’s take on the King novel. It is going to be the best part about this fall and I cannot wait.
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