The Running Man was a moderate box office success in the United States, grossing $38 million on its $27 million budget, but opened to mixed reviews from critics. A new movie adaptation of the novel, announced in early 2021, is in development at Paramount Pictures, with Edgar Wright directing and Michael Bacall writing the script.[3]
Plot
By 2017, following a worldwide economic collapse and resource scarcity, the United States has become a totalitarian police state. The government maintains control through propaganda, censoring any unsanctioned art, music, and communications. The most popular TV show, The Running Man, is a state-controlled game show where incarcerated criminals can earn their freedom by surviving as "runners" against lethal "stalkers".
Captain Ben Richards is arrested after refusing orders to open fire on an unarmed food riot in Bakersfield, California. His fellow officers massacre the rioters, and Richards is framed for the incident, being dubbed the "Butcher of Bakersfield". Eighteen months later, Richards escapes from a prison labor camp with two resistance fighters, Harold Weiss and William Laughlin. Although they offer him a chance to join the resistance, Richards is only interested in survival. He travels to his brother's apartment, only to find that Amber Mendez, a composer for the state broadcaster ICS, now lives there, as his brother was taken for "re-education."
Richards forces Amber to help him bypass airport security, but believing him to be the "Butcher", she alerts the authorities. After his arrest, Amber sees news coverage falsely claiming Richards killed several people during the incident and begins to doubt his guilt. Meanwhile, the ruthless and narcissistic Damon Killian, host of The Running Man, decides to recruit Richards, hoping to boost the show's stagnant ratings. He threatens to replace Richards with Laughlin and Weiss unless he agrees to participate.
As The Running Man begins, Killian reneges on his offer and sends Richards, Weiss, and Laughlin in rocket sleds to the game zone, an abandoned part of Los Angeles divided into four quadrants. The group is stalked by Subzero, a hockey-themed assassin, whom Richards kills, marking the first time a runner has killed a stalker. Meanwhile, Amber, caught accessing the unedited Bakersfield footage, is sent into the game zone. Killian then dispatches two more stalkers, the chainsaw-wielding Buzzsaw and electric-shooting Dynamo.
Richards kills Buzzsaw with his own chainsaw, though Laughlin is fatally injured. Weiss, meanwhile, discovers the satellite uplink controlling government broadcasts is inside the game zone and cracks the code for Amber to memorize before being killed by Dynamo. Richards incapacitates Dynamo but spares his life to the audience's shock. When Killian secretly offers him a job as a stalker, Richards furiously declines. Amber discovers the corpses of the show's past "winners", realizing their victories were state propaganda, and Richards kills the flamethrower-wielding Fireball. The audience begins cheering for Richards, while crowds outside place bets on his success.
Richards and Amber are soon found by the resistance, led by Mic, and taken to their command center. Killian orders retired stalker Captain Freedom to face Richards, but he refuses unless he can fight him honorably without gimmicks. Instead, ICS edits existing footage to show Freedom killing Richards and Amber. Seeing this on TV, Richards realizes the government must now ensure they are not seen alive again. Using the satellite uplink codes, Mic airs an exposé of Killian's and the government's lies, including the unedited Bakersfield footage, while Richards leads the resistance members in a takeover of ICS to prevent the network from disabling the broadcast.
At ICS, the resistance battles the security forces. Amber is attacked by Dynamo, but she triggers the sprinkler system, electrocuting him. Richards then confronts Killian, forcing him into a rocket sled and sending him into the game zone, where the uncontrolled vehicle crashes and explodes, killing Killian. As the audience and crowds celebrate, Richards and Amber kiss as the broadcasting network goes offline.
Christopher Reeve was once attached to play Ben Richards.[4] In a 2015 interview about the film, Paul Michael Glaser said that he was originally approached to direct the film but declined because he felt that the preproduction period was insufficient.[5] Director Andrew Davis was hired instead but was fired after just two weeks because the production was one week behind schedule; Glaser was then hired. Schwarzenegger has stated this was a "terrible decision," as Glaser "shot the movie like it was a television show, losing all the deeper themes."[6]LA Weekly stated that the film's tone changed from a dark allegory to a humorous action film with the change of the film's star.[7] With Reeve, The Running Man was about an unemployed man who goes on a violent game show for a thirty-day period to feed his family. With Glaser and Schwarzenegger, the protagonist became a condemned, but innocent, criminal forced into a three-hour gladiator-style game show by the justice system. Screenwriter Steven E. de Souza wrote fifteen drafts of the script over the course of the film's development.
Pop star Paula Abdul choreographed the preshow dance sequences. This was her second film credit, though she had already choreographed four Janet Jackson videos, as well as videos by ZZ Top, Duran Duran, and Debbie Gibson. The music used for the preshow entertainment was composed by Jackie Jackson and was dubbed "Paula's Theme" in honor of Paula Abdul.
The film's release was postponed from summer 1987 to Thanksgiving 1987 due to the producers' desire for the film to be the only action thriller released during the holiday season. The film opened on 1,600 screens on November 13, 1987, to moderately positive reviews.
Music
Soundtrack
The film's soundtrack was composed by Harold Faltermeyer and includes music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Richard Wagner, Jackie Jackson, Glen Barbee, and John Parr, who performed the main theme of the film, "Restless Heart (Running Away With You)" (written by John Parr and Harold Faltermeyer and produced by Faltermeyer) and played during the final scene and end credits.[8] An expanded Deluxe Edition, featuring the full score along with source music and previously unreleased alternate cues, was released in 2020 by Varese Sarabande (who also released the original album in 1987) on both CD and vinyl.
Being also an opera singer, wrestler and actor Erland van Lidth performs in his role as Dynamo part of the aria "Hai già vinta la causa... Vedrò mentr'io sospiro" out of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro.
Release
Home media
Artisan Entertainment released the film on DVD in December 1997, and again in 2004. The 2004 release includes new special features, audio commentaries and surround sound mix.[9]
On February 9, 2010, Lionsgate released the film on Blu-ray with a 7.1 surround sound mix.[10] Olive Films (under licence from Paramount, who owns the film due to having the Taft Pictures library) re-released the film on DVD and Blu-ray, with the original 2-channel surround mix, on February 19, 2013.
In 2022, for the film’s 35th anniversary, Paramount Home Entertainment announced an Ultra HD 4K Blu-ray release of the film on November 8, 2022. The disc will include HDR-10, Dolby Vision, and the 7.1 surround mix.[11] Paramount also owns the TV and streaming rights.
In The Running Man's opening weekend, it was released in 1,692 theaters and grossed $8,117,465.[14] The film's total domestic gross was $38,122,105.[2]
Critical response
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four, complaining that "all the action scenes are versions of the same scenario", but praised Dawson's performance, stating that he "has at last found the role he was born to play."[15]Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote that the film "has the manners and gadgetry of a sci-fi adventure film, but is, at heart, an engagingly mean, cruel, nasty, funny send-up of television. It's not quite Network, but then it also doesn't take itself too seriously."[16]Variety wrote that the film "coarsens the star's hitherto winning formula" and "works only on a pure action level," calling the satire "paperthin and constantly contradicted by the film wallowing in the sort of mindless violence for the roller derby-addicted masses it is supposedly criticizing."[17]Dave Kehr of the Chicago Tribune gave the film two stars out of four and wrote, "It's a format all right, but it may be too much of a format for a feature-length film. With Arnold Schwarzenegger, a former state security officer framed as the perpetrator of a notorious public massacre, sitting in as victim-of-the-week, The Running Man has little to do but run through the game's four stages."[18] Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times declared, "The Running Man is, by far, Schwarzenegger's best vehicle since The Terminator—not such high praise if you recall what came in between—and it suggests that his Frank Frazetta frame shows best in these fantasy sci-fi settings ... For the right audience, it'll be fun. It's for action fans with a taste for something off the beaten track—but not too far."[19] Rita Kempley of The Washington Post called the film "a fast-paced, futuristic purée of Beat the Clock, Max Headroom, professional wrestling and The Most Dangerous Game. Pumped and primed for self-parody, the burly star proves as funny as he is ferocious in this tough guy's commentary on America's preoccupation with violence and game shows."[20]
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a score of 67% based on reviews from 48 critics, with an average rating of 5.7/10. The site's critical consensus states, "The Running Man is winking sci-fi satire with ridiculous clothes and workmanlike direction".[21] On Metacritic the film holds a score of 45 out of 100 based on reviews from 12 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[22] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[23]
On the film's 30th anniversary in 2017, The Running Man was cited by a BBC journalist as having made accurate predictions about life in 2017, including an economic collapse, and offering a critique of American television culture.[24] The film's writer Steven de Souza himself reinforced these predictions in a podcast interview with Vice Magazine's "Motherboard" section.[25] Reed Tucker of the New York Post said in 2019 that the film "correctly predicted ... the widening gap between the rich and poor", depicting homeless shantytowns and skyscrapers for the wealthy resembling the real New York City and Los Angeles, and societal obsession with reality TV. De Souza said one of the producers of American Gladiators sold his show with clips from The Running Man, telling the network "We're doing exactly this, except the murdering part".[26]
On February 19, 2021, Paramount Pictures announced that it would make a new film adaptation of the novel, one that would be more faithful to the source material. Edgar Wright will direct and reimagine the story with Michael Bacall, the latter of whom will pen the screenplay. Simon Kinberg and Audrey Chon will produce through Kinberg's Genre Films banner, alongside Nira Park from Wright's Complete Fiction banner.[33] In April 2024, it was announced Glen Powell would star in the remake.[34] Production is scheduled to begin in November 2024.[35] On October 4, 2024, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that Katy O'Brian had joined the cast.[36] On October 17, Josh Brolin was announced to be playing the antagonist.[37] On October 18th Lee Pace was announced to play the chief hunter.[38] On October 25th Michael Cera (who'd previously collaborated with Wright and Bacall on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) and Emilia Jones joined the cast.[39] The film is set to release in November 21, 2025.
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