Action movies are more than just alive — they’re owning the big screen, and Glen Powell has become one of Hollywood’s rising action stars following his successes with Top Gun: Maverick, Hit Man and Twisters. With his latest project, The Running Man, on the horizon, fans of the original 1987 movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger are curious how it will shape up.
Hollywood Life has all the details on the 2025 adaptation of The Running Man here.
What Is The Running Man About?
The film follows Ben Richards (Powell) who joins a game show called The Running Man, where contestants are pursued by individuals called “hunters” that are hired to kill them. His motivation? To help his family out of poverty and a health crisis. But the game show is no ordinary one; with almost no rules to follow, Ben must evade death as millions around him try to kill him.
While speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Glen teased that his character has “got a bone to pick with the world” and added, “It’s a different gear, you know. [director] Edgar [Wright] always calls it ‘Bad Mood Glen.’ He’s like, ‘Hey, I need more Bad Mood Glen!’”
The actor also pointed out that his friend, former co-star and mentor Tom Cruise was his “first call” when he got the part. After all, who other than Tom would know about action sequences and stunts?
“I said, ‘Tom, how do you do this?’” Glen recalled. “I spent like two and a half hours on the phone with him. I took a million notes. I knew I was going to have to put my body on the line on this movie. He told me all the things to worry about, all the things not to worry about, and also how to entertain audiences at the highest level. [He said], ‘Don’t just put your life on the line, make sure all the elements around you highlight cinematically the experience.’ Because [you] can jump off a bridge from an explosion, if you don’t frame it right, if it’s not timed correctly, the audience may not even know that you’re the guy doing it.”
The Running Man Cast
In addition to Glen, the rest of The Running Man cast features Josh Brolin, Colman Domingo, Lee Pace, Jayme Lawson, Michael Cera, Emilia Jones, William H. Macy, David Zayas, Katy O’Brian, Daniel Ezra, Karl Glusman and Sean Hayes.
The Running Man Trailer Breakdown
As with any action movie trailer, the teaser for The Running Man is packed with infernos, fights and screaming. In a Hunger Games-esque manner, viewers see Glen agree to be hunted down by everyone around him for 30 days so he can win the game show and help his family.
As Glen’s character, Ben, gets hunted down for viewers’ entertainment, viewers hear spectators chant in the trailer, “Hunt him down!”
The Running Man Movie Release Date
Paramount Pictures will release The Running Man on November 7, 2025, in theaters.
How Does The Running Man Book Compare to the Movie?
The 1982 book by the famous Stephen King is set in a 2025 dystopian United States, where the game show The Running Man coincides with the nation’s economic collapse and normalized violence.
