Michael Cera and Emilia Jones are lacing up their shoes for The Running Man.
Both actors have closed deals to join Glen Powell in Paramount’s adaptation of the Stephen King story that is being directed by Edgar Wright. For Cera, the move reunites him with the filmmaker behind one of his beloved roles, that of romantic slacker Scott Pilgrim from 2010’s Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.
Josh Brolin, Katy O’Brian (Love Lies Bleeding) and Lee Pace are already on the call sheet for the feature that is due to shoot in London at the top of next year.
King’s Running Man, published in 1982 and written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, was set in 2025 in an America under a totalitarian regime that uses violent game shows to placate the disenfranchised masses.
The novel centered on a desperate man named Ben Richards, needing money for his sick daughter, who joins the most popular show, The Running Man, in which teams of killers hunt down contestants. The longer a contestant survives, the more money that person makes. But as the game show’s producers and killers will find out, this desperate man will break all the rules and expose the show’s dark secrets.
Jones will play a privileged woman blind to the oppression of the government opposite Powell’s Richards.
Cera will play a naïve rebel who tries to help the desperate man.
Brolin, meanwhile, stars as the ruthless producer of the game show, O’Brian will play one of the contestants on the show, and Pace is playing the brutal chief hunter tracking down Powell’s character.
Paramount is releasing the film on Nov. 21, 2025. Simon Kinberg, Nira Park and Wright are producing.
Last year, Cera reprised his Pilgrim character in Netflix’s well-regarded animated show Scott Pilgrim Takes Off. The actor had a scene-stealing cameo in Barbie and co-stars opposite Amy Schumer in Hulu dramedy Life & Beth.
Jones, who was one of the stars of Netflix’s Locke & Key series, has spent the time since CODA’s Oscar wins starring in several indies, among them 2023’s Cat Person, directed by Susanna Fogel, and Winner, in which she portrayed former US Air Force office Reality Winner.
Cera is repped by CAA, Thruline Entertainment and Lichter Grossman. Jones is repped by CAA, Brillstein Entertainment Partners and UK’s Artist Rights Group.
