Paramount Unveils First Trailer for King’s The Running Man

Paramount Pictures has debuted the first trailer for The Running Man (2025) from director Edgar Wright. Wright’s version is a reimagining of Stephen King’s novel of the same name, published under his pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1982. The earlier work inspired the 1987 action film with the same name and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the lead role. However, Wright’s upcoming film is a new adaptation of King’s story.

Stephen King published several novels in the late 1970s and early 1980s under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. In 1984, the media discovered King’s secret, and he officially outed himself as the author behind Bachman’s works. However, one of King’s most well-known Bachman stories endures to this day: The Running Man.

Written by King in a single week, The Running Man is a harrowing, satirical glimpse into a dystopian, failing United States in the year 2025—the same year the film will be released. In this future, a violent and oppressive reality game show is constantly broadcast to the public.

The story follows Ben Richards, a poor man who resides in the state-supported “Co-Op City” with his pregnant wife and a dying daughter. Having been blacklisted from his previous employment, Richards can’t find any work, and his family is on the verge of destitution. On a whim, he decides to take his chances on The Running Man, the most popular television show in the nation. Runners—contestants on the show—are assigned an objective that involves eluding Hunters, state-sanctioned mercenaries. The country tunes in as the Runners’ whereabouts are broadcast on live television and streaming platforms to a morbid, entertainment-hungry public. As a man on the show, Richards is a declared Enemy of the State, and he is given a 12-hour head start before the Hunters hit the road in pursuit. The world is then left to wonder if Richards will be eliminated before the clock runs out.

The Running Man show is simple in its structure but horrifying in its implications: Live for 30 days, and you win $1 billion. No one has ever lived that long on the show, with the record at 197 hours. However, the longer the player lives, the more money he earns. Additionally, each Hunter the Runner kills nets a cash bonus, providing a small, albeit crucial, incentive to every new participant. The show’s contestants are often already down on their luck, and desperation can quickly become a player’s most significant motivator. However, Ben Richards has an unusually good run, but if readers of King are aware of his work, they know how a classic Stephen King story ends: bleakly.

The 1987 film adaptation took a much more independent approach to the source material. Though it did not stray too far from the central narrative of a murderous game show, it leaned more heavily into sci-fi action territory and embraced the high-production ‘80s blockbuster style. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Ben Richards was beefed up to be a hulking action hero, much different from the scrawny and pre-tubercular Richards King describes. The movie is loud, entertaining, and filled with shiny gadgets and over-the-top action, but it left much of the book’s biting satire and emotional storytelling behind.

Wright, the director behind cult classics Shaun of the Dead, Baby Driver, and Last Night in Soho, first expressed interest in the source material back in 2017. The studio greenlit the film in 2021, with Wright on board to direct and work on the script alongside co-writer Michael Bacall. In interviews, the director has suggested that the adaptation would be truer to the source material than the earlier film and manage to stay both true to King’s darker vision and faithful to Wright’s filmmaking style.

The first trailer seems to suggest that they have pulled off this balancing act. Glen Powell will star as Ben Richards, swapping the charm he’s used to portray for a grittier, more desperate performance. Josh Brolin will play Dan Killian, the host of the show with a large ego and an even larger interest in maintaining a winning streak. Killian convinces Richards to join the game and underbids him into it.

Lee Pace will play Evan McCone, the head of the Hunters tasked with hunting down and killing Richards during his time as a Runner. Jayme Lawson is Richard’s wife, Sheila. Colman Domingo hosts the show as Bobby Thompson. Michael Cera plays rebel Bradley Throckmorton, a role that has drawn some fans’ interest, but the nature of the part has been kept under wraps. Actors William H. Macy, David Zayas, Emilia Jones, Karl Glusman, Katy O’Brian, and Daniel Ezra will have supporting roles in the film.

More Stephen King in 2025

For fans of King’s Bachman period, The Running Man is not the only dystopian competition film coming to theaters in 2025. Another of King’s famous works in the same vein, The Long Walk, also has a film adaptation in the works. King’s other 1979 dystopian novel is a high-stakes competition story in which teenage runners are forced to participate in a walking contest. The first to stop before 100 days have passed is executed, and the last man standing wins. The film is expected to release on September 12, 2025, just two months before The Running Man opens in theaters on November 7.

Both stories, with their themes of government cruelty, public entertainment, media manipulation, and survival, will make 2025 an exciting year for Stephen King fans and a more sobering one for all of us who might be thinking about where our priorities and entertainment media, capitalism, and empathy intersect.