In Stephen King's The Running Man, everyone, from the sprawling slums to the security-obsessed enclaves of the rich, tunes in every night to the nation's favourite prime-time TV game show.
They all watch the ultimate live death game as the contestants try to beat not the clock, but annihilation at the hands of the Hunters. Survive thirty days and win the billion-dollar jackpot - that's the promise. But the odds are brutal, and the game is rigged. The best score so far is eight days.
However, a new contestant, the latest Running Man, stakes his life while a nation watches. That's Ben Richards, the character who will be played by Twisters and Hit Man star Glen Powell in Edgar Wright's upcoming reboot of the novel (which was previously adapted in 1987 with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the title role).
Paramount Pictures has shared a new trailer for The Running Man—via SFFGazette.com—and while it's light on plot, there's heaps of action. However, with Wright at the helm, these action scenes feel wholly unique and have a certain style and flair that's missing from many modern blockbusters.
Powell looks like he was born to play this role, and with the world rallying behind Ben making it out of this 30-day hunt alive, the stakes are going to be incredibly high.
After all, the titular Running Man also needs to save his daughter, with the prize for surviving crucial to buying the medicine she needs. Combine that with some edge-of-your-seat action scenes, and this is shaping up to be the movie of the winter.
"I think the journey of Ben Richards and me, there's definitely overlap, which is as a public figure, especially now, I would say the truth has probably never mattered less," Powell said in a recent interview, "we're in a TikTokification age where everyone's trying to gain followers or after their own agendas."
"People do whatever it takes to get what they need and say whatever they need to say to get what they need." You can't blame anyone, but it is just the system that we live in," he continued. "And even more so, you're set up to become the villain so that the world cheers for you to lose."
"I find it always fascinating in terms of our news cycle, how quickly news spreads and how quickly we're here to define heroes and villains, and how odd that there's no nuance or fact-checking. It's rapid headlines, almost to an overwhelming degree, which is very dangerous. And you start to see that pack mentality of how the internet works. And we very much play on that in The Running Man."
The Running Man arrives in theaters on November 14. You can watch the new trailer in the players below.