Edgar Wright has recently spoken to Happy Sad Confused podcast about The Running Man – the project he’s been tied to as director for a couple of years now – and has said he wants to stay as true to the book as possible.
The Running Man was originally known as one of ‘The Bachman Books’ – that is, one of the works written by Stephen King under his pseudonym, Richard Bachman – and is being developed right now along with The Long Walk (which we also covered a story about recently).
It’s another dystopian future-type tale where a desperate, poverty-stricken man signs up to a deadly game known as ‘The Running Man’ so he can win money for his family. But unlike Squid Game – just as an example – Richards is hunted by professional killers out in the real world, where he must use any means necessary to survive and avoid being captured.
Y’know what? It’s like Squid Game meets Hunted – that British reality TV show where 14 normal people have to go on the run and avoid being tracked, spotted on CCTV and captured for a 28-day run. It’s just like that, only with prize money and obviously the contestants often have a much deadlier fate.
The first adaptation of The Running Man came out in 1987, and starred Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Here’s what Wright had to say:
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. 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. Obviously back in like the ’70s and ’80s you had ones where they were additive like Philip Kauffman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers or John Carpenter’s The Thing or David Cronenberg’s The Fly; it’s taking something and and doing something interesting with it.’
He then specifically discussed The Running Man and his creative ideas for it, saying:
In terms of like things that I’ve been (doing), like you know, The Running Man which is something that is in active development. Why is that interesting to me? I like the film but I like the book more and they didn’t really adapt the book. 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 adapted that book. So when that came up I was thinking you know 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 is something like crying out to be adapted.’ Now that doesn’t mean that it’s easy but like it is something that we are working on, yes, I’ll say that much.
You have no idea how happy it makes me that a) The Running Man is being adapted, and that b) it’s going to actually be close to the book this time! Wright is right in that the previous adaptation of The Running Man was really nowhere near.
I actually have a similar story of watching it around the time I was devouring Stephen King novels, and was particularly into the Bachman books. I got really excited that there’d been a film made, and the disappointment was epic.
So, two Bachman book adaptations in the works? I’m a happy constant reader right now! Oh, and if you want to watch the disappointing first adaptation of The Running Man, with Arnie, you can do so on NowTV!
Source: GeekTyrant
