Edgar Wright’s New Stephen King Remake Can Fix A 36-Year-Old Movie Mistake

Edgar Wright’s next project is the adaptation of a Stephen King story, which was already adapted three decades ago, but Wright can now fix its mistakes. Although he’s best known for his work in the comedy genre thanks to the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Edgar Wright has also proven that he can bring his unique narrative and visual style to other genres. Aside from comedy, Wright has also explored the genres of action, horror, and sci-fi, though most of them with a nice touch of comedy.

Following the success of the psychological thriller Last Night in Soho, Edgar Wright is now ready to move forward with his next project. Wright is now working on an adaptation of Stephen King’s 1982 novel The Running Man (published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman), which mixes elements of horror and action, making it a perfect project for Wright. This isn’t the first adaptation of The Running Man, which already got a movie version in 1987, directed by Paul Michael Glaser and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger – however, this adaptation was a failure, but Wright can now fix it and bring a better version of King’s novel.

Edgar Wright’s The Running Man Remake Can Make Up For The Arnold Schwarzenegger Movie

Stephen King’s The Running Man is set in a dystopian United States in 2025, where the country’s economy is in ruins and violence arises all over the world. An impoverished 28-year-old man named Ben Richards, whose daughter is ill and his wife has resorted to prostitution for money, turns to Games Network as he’s desperate for money. Richards is selected for the reality show The Running Man, where contestants can go anywhere in the world but are being chased by a team of hitmen as contestants are declared an enemy of the state. Contestants earn $100 per hour if they stay alive and avoid capture, $100 extra for each law enforcement officer or Hunter they kill, and $1 billion if they survive for 30 days.

The Running Man has a suspenseful premise, but the 1987 adaptation made too many changes to it and left out those elements that made King’s novel so engaging. Glaser’s adaptation is set between 2017 and 2019, and the participants of The Running Man are criminals fleeing from mercenaries in order to earn a government pardon and a tropical vacation. Arnold Schwarzenegger played Ben Richards, a police helicopter pilot sent to a prison labor camp who escapes with two resistance fighters and is later offered to take part in The Running Man.

Glaser’s The Running Man is hardly an adaptation of King’s novel given all the changes made to it, which led to it being a critical and commercial failure. While the action scenes in The Running Man were well-received, the rest was found to be boring and forgettable. With Edgar Wright now in charge, King’s The Running Man can finally get a proper film adaptation, making up for the mess and disappointment brought by the 1987 version.

What Edgar Wright’s The Running Man Needs To Get Right To Succeed

Of course, for Edgar Wright’s The Running Man to succeed where Glaser’s version failed, it has to be an actual adaptation of King’s novel, not just a story with borrowed names and concepts. Wright’s The Running Man also has to embrace the novel’s suspense and horror and find the balance between this and the story’s action elements, instead of just focusing on one. Wright has already proven he can bring exciting and engaging action movies and thrillers thanks to Baby Driver and Last Night in Soho, and The Running Man can have the best of both and finally do justice to Stephen King’s novel – and though this also puts extra pressure on Edgar Wright, his filmography shows he can handle the challenge and succeed at it.