Stephen King’s The Running Man enters the box office race this weekend, and director Edgar Wright’s best film to date is a thrilling and faithful adaptation of King’s novella.
Glen Powell stars in “The Running Man.”
Source: Paramount, photo by Ross Ferguson
The Running Man By The Numbers
The Running Man opens at about 3,400 locations in North America this weekend, including 1,000 premium screens, including Thursday evening’s early preview screenings. The terrific cast includes Glenn Powell, Colman Domingo, Jayme Lawson, Katy M. O’Brian, Emillia Jones, Daniel Ezra, Michael Cera, Lee Pace, William H. Macy, and Josh Brolin.
The international rollout starts with 55 markets this week, including Mexico, The UK, and Germany, before expanding into additional markets next week, including France, Brazil, and Spain. From there, The Running Man then sprints into Asia-Pacific markets including China and Korea next month, before making its way into Japan in late-January.
The Running Man opens against the second weekend of the breakout hit Predator: Badlands, and the debut of Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, both of which are franchise sequels with stronger audience awareness and especially among younger audiences less familiar with the classic 1980s Arnold Schwarzenegger adaption of The Running Man.
The nostalgia and brand awareness should play well with older demographics, however. There’s also the added boost of The Running Man being a Stephen King story, and this film is putting that front and center, while also adhering much closer to King’s original story.
Then there is the stardom of Glenn Powell, who hasn’t yet proven he’s a marquee name but seems determined to do so (was this his audition for the role of Batman? you bet, intended or not, and you’ve convinced me Mr. Powell). He brings a face and name many audiences know and like, and his fans will show up for what is his best lead role yet.
But perhaps most importantly for the film’s word of mouth, holds, and potential repeat business is the combination of how outright entertaining it is while feeling like the most relevant studio movie of the year. Because make no mistake, The Running Man is a political movie with a powerful message stated boldly and bluntly, and there’s no point pretending it’s not a message that resonates with an increasingly angry and restless public at large.
At present, The Running Man looks like it’s pacing itself for a $25 million domestic bow, but I can see that rising toward $30 million if the third Now You See Me film can’t conjure up its own $15+ million in sales, and/or if the Predator sequel overperforms again to $20+ million or sees a more average hold in the $15-18 million range.
My gut says audiences who aren’t holding back awaiting the arrival of Wicked: For Good on November 21st are looking for theatrical viewing worthy of their hard-earned dollars, and that the buzz around Predator: Badlands plus the buzz for The Running Man and Stephen King’s It: Welcome to Derry could act as additional motivators for walk-up business. In-theater promos at premium screens are also further enticing viewers toward those large format theater experiences for maximum viewing payoff.
I suspect that as word of mouth spreads, The Running Man will enjoy good holds as counter-programming and also pick up attention in international markets for its reflection of the state of the world and particular the United States.
The Running Man needs about $400 million for box office alone to cover filming and promotion, all things considered. Of course, we know it’s true that there’s more involved, including presales and all of the post-theatrical ancillary revenue streams, the merchandising, and so on. But box office is still a solid predictor most of the time, in terms of franchise longevity and health of later revenue.
This is being positioned as a major release, not counter-programming, and the spend showed up on the screen for sure. This doesn’t look low-budget or like a boring knockoff dystopian set, the effects don’t look basic, and the cast are all great. The Running Man takes itself seriously as a box office contender, and that confidence and quality will win the day, I believe.
The Running Man Review
Writer-director Edgar Wright, with cowriter Michael Bacall, has made his best film to date with The Running Man. It’s among the most relevant and anti-establishment studio releases in years, perhaps decades. Fight Club (despite its baggage due to fans misunderstanding its point and approving Tyler’s fascist recruitment ideology) was perhaps the last blatant klaxon call for revolutionary sentiment and action to save ourselves from the dehumanizing threats of corporatocracy and fascism.
I will note that The Running Man started production in 2024 and was completed, prepared, and marketed by early summer of 2025, making it among the final projects created and marketed under the previous ownership at Paramount.
One Battle After Another’s fluid white-male-perspective thematic messaging doesn’t approach the overall consistent relevance and pointed commentary and reflection of our modern world found in The Running Man.
Racism, sexism, segregation, and the loss of civil rights. A takeover of government by oligarchs and their transnational conglomerates dehumanizing and exploiting and enslaving the world within techno-fascist “company towns” that replace traditional nation-states and what we think of as “civilization.” Ruled by carnival barkers and their mercenaries who put on vulgar displays of entertainment and exaggerated displays of wealth. That’s the world of The Running Man.
Secret police raids and a breakdown of social order perpetually “reestablished” with ever more brutal state violence. Directing the resources of the state toward feeding the insatiable greed of a select few, all of them craving as much outrageous privilege as possible, until their privilege is so extreme there’s nowhere else to climb and they turn the world around them into a dystopian nightmare just to enhance their feeling of status. That’s the world of The Running Man.
That’s a dystopian future, that’s an imaginary nightmare version of the world. Right? Except this is a reality already known well by much of the world who have lived or current live in some version of such nightmares. And it’s a truth the rest of the world is slowly learning, even if it doesn’t know it yet. That, too, is a theme of The Running Man, that dystopia can always get worse.
The Running Man knows full well that we recognize our own world in its dystopia, that it is less of a warning of things that might come to pass, and more a call to wake up and look around, because we’re already there or on the off-ramp in that direction.
Attempting to play by the rules of the dystopian society will get you killed quick, since of course the rules are rigged and society cheats. The trick of it is this, the film tells us: they want us to run so they can chase us, because as long as everyone is running away we won’t think to turn around and chase them.
Which is the real point and subtext of The Running Man after all. Why do we fall for it? Why does the vast population run in fear from a handful of silly people in costumes who posture and scream and pretend we have no choice, when all we have to do is walk up and take everything away from them? The Running Man looks this question in the eye.
The fear of standing up in a crowd and realizing nobody else stood up with you, of turning to face your pursuers only to realize nobody else turned around with you, is what holds people back. They see one or two people turn around, alone, and get caught or killed, and the pursuers use that to make themselves look bigger, sound meaner, seem scarier. But it’s a mirage, a lie. All it takes is that one day, that one moment, when enough people turn around – not even everybody, not even half, just enough – that the chasers hesitate. And the ones who turned around take a step toward the chasers, and the chasers take a step back. Then more people turn around. And more. And more.
Make no mistake, The Running Man calls for revolution. And in doing so, it openly tells us to be angry. To be furious. There is no compromise or calls for mercy. Oh no, very much the opposite in this film. And it does so by having its hero refuse to identify as special, or as a leader, or as even the one to bring about the revolution. He quite openly recognizes and states his position as just another regular person, one among many, and while he fights to stay alive the rest of the world starts fighting to set itself free.
The Running Man turns entertainment and one man’s fight into a microcosm reminding everyone else of what’s wrong and why it has to change. The film has lots of great moments and good character arcs, but some in particular stand out. I don’t spoil movies or ruin surprises, so I will refrain from giving anything away; but there is a particular scene encapsulating the power of resistance and the hopelessness of the elites sitting atop their house of cards, a simple but elegant choice so perfect even a character in-story can’t help reacting to the moment. It lands hard and perfect.
There are minor quibbles to be had, but I am not exaggerating when I say I can only remember one that even lasted in my mind after walking out of the theater, and it’s not even worth mentioning since it’s a story choice and merely my preference about certain resolutions. See this film, your ticket dollars will be well-spent and it’s a film you’ll want to talk about and more than any other big studio release you see this year.
The Running Man hits the ground sprinting and never looks back, viscerally and emotionally, delivering a rousing call for courage, moral clarity, and action in the face of threats not only to our freedoms and society, but to our very humanity itself. It’s the sort of studio picture you rarely expect, and even more rarely get. But how rare that has to be, the film reminds us, is up to us, if we want it to be.