“Twisters” star Glen Powell has another franchise on his hands as a new adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Running Man” recently got the green light at Paramount Pictures and will start production in November, TheWrap has exclusively learned.
“Baby Driver” filmmaker Edgar Wright is attached to direct and co-write the story with his “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” collaborator Michael Bacall. Bacall wrote the script.
“The Running Man” is King’s futuristic sci-fi thriller set in a dystopian, 2025 America. The story in the novel centers on Ben Richards, a desperate man who participates in violent reality show “The Running Man” in order to win enough money to revive his gravely ill daughter. The show follows Richards being chased by numerous hunters sent to kill him.
King first published the “The Running Man” under his pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1982. In 1987, the book was adapted into a movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and directed by Paul Michael Glaser.
According to an insider with knowledge of the project, the new movie “is a more faithful adaptation” of King’s novel. As TheWrap first exclusively reported, Powell is attached to star as Richards.
On Monday, TheWrap published an analysis on Powell’s interesting choices and rising movie stardom as a modern leading man.
“Glen Powell is most definitely an up-and-coming movie star in the sense that audiences now go to movies to see him,” a Hollywood producer told TheWrap on the heels of “Twisters” exceeding expectations at the box office (it’s surpassed $335 million worldwide) and “Anyone but You” slow-walking to $220 million in theaters before taking Netflix by storm this spring. “Unlike an actor like Ryan Gosling whose appeal is mostly limited to female audiences, Glen appeals to both females and males,” the producer added.
