Stephen King Loved Edgar Wright’s New Ending for THE RUNNING MAN Even if Some Critics Didn’t

When it comes to adapting Stephen King’s work, you can’t please everyone, but if you’ve got the approval of King himself, that’s a pretty good sign you’re doing something right.

That’s exactly what Edgar Wrightachieved with his upcoming adaptation of The Running Man, a film that’s already sparking conversation for its wild new ending.

Wright’s version of The Running Man is more faithful adaptation of King’s 1982 novel than the 1987 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. But that doesn’t mean Wright and his co-writer Michael Bacall didn’t take creative risks. One of their biggest changes is how the story concludes.

Without giving away spoilers, Wright says that while the new ending differs from the novel, it still captures the book’s raw intensity and rebellious energy.

“What we settled on very early, in terms of talking about the adaptation, is a different way of doing it that still has the same fire. It needed to kind of have the same spirit of the book, but in a different way.”

For those unfamiliar, The Running Man is set in a grim, near-future dystopia. It follows Ben Richards (Glen Powell), an unemployed father desperate to save his sick daughter. To earn money, he enters a deadly game show where contestants must survive for 30 days while being hunted by professional killers, all for a $1 billion prize.

Now, King absolutely loved Wright’s changes. The filmmaking continued: “What was very gratifying to me is Stephen King had to sign off on the adaptation, so there was a point in the production where we had to send him the script to get his approval, and he loved the script, and he said, ‘I think you did a great job with the ending.”

For Wright, that kind of praise came with an added weight of responsibility. “So for the man himself to say that, we were like, ‘Okay, great.’ And then it adds a new pressure as well, because, like, oh, now we have to make it.

“When you're making a movie, you're always trying to live up to the version that's in your head, even the version that I thought of that I had in my head when I read it when I was 14.

“But now I also have to live up to what's in Stephen King's head as well. So I think then for the rest of the movie, you're almost making it for an audience of one.”

That “audience of one” might be all Wright needs. Whether fans agree or not, the fact that King himself is on board gives this adaptation a serious edge. I liked the film, but a lot of critics seems to take issue with the ending.

The Running Man hits theaters on November 14.

Source: GamesRadar+