Stephen King in Conversation with Edgar Wright
“When I wrote The Running Man, 2025 seemed so far in the future that I couldn’t even grasp it in my mind.”
In a notable year for Stephen King adaptations, filmmaker Edgar Wright discusses with the author his plans for a new version of The Running Man. The conversation explores media manipulation, the enduring appeal of genre storytelling, and the ways in which real life has grown to mirror King’s fiction over the past half-century.
“Welcome to America in 2025 when the best men don’t run for president. They run for their lives…”
This was the tagline for King’s The Running Man, a story portraying a future where a government-run television network distracts and controls the masses through a brutal televised hunt. Although the book was released in 1982, King had originally written it ten years earlier under the pseudonym Richard Bachman.
Publication and Legacy
The novella reached a broader audience in 1985 through The Bachman Books collection, which also included Rage (1977), The Long Walk (1979), and Roadwork (1981). Two years later, Paul Michael Glaser directed a film adaptation starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as protagonist Ben Richards. Despite maintaining the deadly gameshow concept, the film diverged significantly from the source material.
Return to a More Faithful Adaptation
Now, nearly four decades later, Edgar Wright’s version aims to more accurately interpret King’s original vision. It feels especially striking that this adaptation arrives in 2025—the very year King once imagined as a far-off future.
Author’s Summary
Stephen King and Edgar Wright reflect on how The Running Man evolved from a dystopian fantasy into a story that uncannily mirrors present-day media culture.