Stephen King’s 1982 novel The Running Man, published under his pseudonym Richard Bachman, is far from being “unadaptable.” But there are definitely some grim elements that would be difficult to bring to life on the big screen. Or, in the words of The Running Man director Edgar Wright, “There was some rougher edges in the book that are probably not going to be in a studio movie.”
Case in point: the ending of the novel, in which Ben Richards, the winner of the Running Man game show, flies a plane into the Network skyscraper. The 2025 Running Man clearly steers away from this ending (though it nods to it pretty obliquely), on top of a handful of other changes from the book. But what exactly is different between the new movie and the book? And how does it change the overall tone of the movie?
