The Running Man: Edgar Wright says he’s actively developing a remake which will be closer to the novel

The Running Man is among some of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s beloved works. It’s definitely a movie that looks like a product of its time, but there was still plenty of fun to be had. The action film originated as a novel by Stephen King. He would write it under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. In the years since the movie’s release, there have been similarly-themed films about a dystopian future that showcase people fighting for their lives for the sake of entertainment, such as The Hunger Games films. However, there has yet to be a faithful adaptation made from The Running Man‘s source material.

Edgar Wright aims to change that. The Shaun of the Dead director is a fan of the Arnold Schwarzenegger film, but he does think there is an opportunity to adapt the Stephen King novel closely since the movie strayed from it. According to ScreenRant, Wright appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, where he talked about developing the project. Wright stated, “In terms of things that I’ve been, like, The Running Man, which is something that is in active development. Why is that interesting to me? It’s like, I like the film but I like the book more, and they didn’t really adapt the book. Even as a teenager when I saw the Schwarzenegger film I was like, ‘Oh, this isn’t like the book at all!’ And I think, ‘Nobody’s [done] that book.’ So when that came up, I was thinking, and Simon Kinberg says, ‘Do you have any interest in The Running Man?’ I said, ‘You know what? I’ve often thought that that book is something crying out to be adapted.’ Now, that doesn’t mean that it’s easy! [Laughs] But it’s something that we are working on, yes. I’ll tell you that much.”

Wright had also reportedly voiced his opinion on the saturation of franchises in quick succession. While he nearly helmed the original Ant-Man in the MCU, Wright expresses the need for some drawn out time between chapters in many Hollywood properties. “I wish some franchises would just kind of have the sense to just take a breather and let people get excited about it again. I feel like there are certain things that I loved that I don’t want to see again, or I don’t want to see them again for a long time. And again, I’m not going to bad mouth anything because it always gets interpreted as sound[bites].”