Edgar Wright's deadly game show adaptation shifts to an earlier release date.
Edgar Wright's reimagining of the Stephen King classic is racing to theaters ahead of schedule as Paramount shifts the release date to avoid a clash with another major holiday release. The studio has moved The Running Man from its original November 21, 2025, slot to November 7, 2025, steering clear of competition with Wicked: For Good, per Deadline. The new date also secures valuable IMAX screen access for the film, though it will now face off against Predator: Badlands and Yorgo Lanthimos' Bugonia.
Top Gun: Maverick star Glen Powell leads the cast 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 that 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."
The ensemble cast includes Josh Brolin, Katy O'Brian, Lee Pace, Daniel Ezra, William H. Macy, Michael Cera, Emilia Jones, Jayme Lawson, and recent addition David Zayas of Dexter fame. Wright is directing from a script he co-wrote with Michael Bacall, promising a fresh take on King's 1982 novel, originally published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman.
"Edgar Wright has been one of my favorite filmmakers for as long as I can remember," Powell said of working with the director. "I think since Shaun of the Dead, I was like, 'I can't wait to work with this guy.' And he just keeps churning out brilliant things that only his brain could concoct."
As for Wright, he has previously emphasized how his adaptation will differ from the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger version.
"I like the film but I like the book more, and they didn't really adapt the book," Wright said. "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 [done] that book.' So when that came up, I was thinking, 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 crying out to be adapted.' Now, that doesn't mean that it's easy!"
Wright's approach to remakes focuses on bringing something new to familiar material. "I think in this day and age as well is like in terms of like, you know I think when remakes are done well is if there's something else to add or there's a different take on it," he noted. "So I think the problem is sometimes recently like 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."
Powell has been physically preparing for the demanding role, sharing, "I have been doing a lot of sprinting. That's all I can say. I've been working on my sprint." He added that the film is "really taking the Stephen King book and just adding a lot of fun Edgar Wright flavor to it, and it has been awesome. That's going to be a really fun one; I'm super excited about it."
The Running Man reboot is now scheduled to hit theaters November 7, 2025.