Edgar Wright's new adaptation of Stephen King's The Running Man will now hit theaters sooner than fans previously thought. The studio behind the film, Paramount Pictures, has bumped The Running Man from its original November 21, 2025, release date to November 7, 2025, Deadline reports. This means the movie will no longer compete against Wicked: For Good, the highly anticipated second installment of the hit Broadway musical adaptation. It also means The Running Man will have more IMAX screens to enjoy.
Directed by Wright from a script by Michael Bacall and Wright, the film stars Glen Powell as Ben Richards, "a desperate man, needing money for his sick daughter, who joins the most popular show, The Running Man, in which teams of killers hunt down contestants. The longer a contestant survives, the more money that person makes. But as the game show's producers and killers will find out, this desperate man will break all the rules and expose the show's dark secrets."
Rounding out the huge and impressive cast are Josh Brolin (Avengers: Endgame, No Country for Old Men), Lee Pace (Guardians of the Galaxy, Bodies Bodies Bodies), Katy O'Brien (Love Lies Bleeding, Twisters), David Zayas (The Expendables, Michael Clayton), William H. Macy (Boogie Nights, Fargo), and Michael Cera, who previously worked with Wright and Bacall on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.
This 'Running Man' Will Stick Closer To King's Novel Close
Wright has promised that his film will be a much more faithful adaptation of The Running Man than the 1987 version starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast (via ComicBook.com), Wright shared his views on remakes in general, and how he believes The Running Man fits into that ethos.
I think when remakes are done well is if there's something else to add or there's a different take on it... So I think the problem is sometimes... remakes are just kind of facsimiles of the original film and I don't really get that excited about a lot of them because they feel like sort of karaoke versions of the originals. Obviously back in like the '70s and '80s you had ones where they were additive like Philip Kauffman's Invasion of the Body Snatchers or John Carpenter's The Thing or David Cronenberg's The Fly; it's taking something and and doing something interesting with it.
In terms of like things that I've been (doing), like you know, The Running Man which is something that is in active development. Why is that interesting to me? I like the film but I like the book more and they didn't really adapt the book. Even as a teenager when I saw the Schwarzenegger film I was like, 'Oh this isn't like the book at all,' and I think nobody's adapted that book. So when that came up I was thinking you know and Simon Kinberg says 'Do you have any interest in The Running Man?' I said, 'You know what I've often thought that that book is something like crying out to be adapted.'
Related Glen Powell Says The Running Man Remake Is Full of 'Fun Edgar Wright Flavor'
Wright's adaptation will also adhere to the source material much better than the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger flick did.
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The original novel, published in 1982, was the fourth book to be published under King's pseudonym, Richard Bachman. The author famously adopted the nom de plume because he wanted to double his literary output - effectively doing the work of two men - with Bachman's novels often being a little more sci-fi leaning than King's all-out horror stories.
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The Running Man Science FictionThriller Release Date November 21, 2025 Director Edgar Wright Cast Glen Powell , Katy O'Brian , Daniel Ezra , Karl Glusman , Josh Brolin , Lee Pace , Jayme Lawson , William H. Macy