Glen Powell Races to Stay Alive in Bloody CinemaCon Trailer for Edgar Wright’s ‘The Running Man’
Glen Powell is lacing up his sneakers and racing to stay alive in the thrilling first trailer for “The Running Man,” Edgar Wright’s adaptation of the dystopian action thriller that was another key step in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s transformation from professional bodybuilder into a major movie star. Paramount Pictures, the studio behind the remake, offered a first look at the film at CinemaCon as part of its presentation to theater owners on Thursday.
It finds Powell playing a down-and-out family man who decides to compete in a deadly game show where contestants try to outrace swat teams and drones that are trying to hunt them down (think “American Idol” with a much higher body count). The winner gets a cash prize. The losers end up in the morgue.
“This game is no game…life and death run wild,” Colman Domingo, playing the malevolent host of the popular program, intones. “This is America goddammit and we don’t put up with no bullshit.”
Powell has a seen-it-all weariness that makes the show’s producers desperate to land him as a contestant. He also runs really, really fast, leaping over banisters and crashing through windows. Before debuting the trailer, Powell told theater owners that making the movie was “the hardest thing I’ve done in my life.”
“I’ve had my body thrashed and smashed,” Powell added.
The film is an adaptation of the 1982 novel of the same name by Stephen King, which he wrote under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. Wright, best known for his genre-bending fare like “Baby Driver” and “Shaun of the Dead,” directs from a screenplay he wrote with Michael Bacall (the pair previously collaborated on “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”).
In an interview with Empire, Wright said his film was “a road movie in a lot of ways: a very intense, dangerous road movie.” It’s one that finds Powell’s character “moving through different environments and meeting different people as he tries to survive 30 days out in the wild.”
The cast includes Katy O’Brian, Josh Brolin, Lee Pace, Jayme Lawson, Michael Cera, Emilia Jones, William H. Macy, and Sean Hayes. The film opens on November 7.
Powell is one of Hollywood’s hottest new stars, having proved his box office clout with last summer’s “Twisters,” as well as the 2023 rom-com “Anyone but You.” “The Running Man” may give his A-list career even more momentum.
It finds Powell playing a down-and-out family man who decides to compete in a deadly game show where contestants try to outrace swat teams and drones that are trying to hunt them down (think “American Idol” with a much higher body count). The winner gets a cash prize. The losers end up in the morgue.
“This game is no game…life and death run wild,” Colman Domingo, playing the malevolent host of the popular program, intones. “This is America goddammit and we don’t put up with no bullshit.”
Powell has a seen-it-all weariness that makes the show’s producers desperate to land him as a contestant. He also runs really, really fast, leaping over banisters and crashing through windows. Before debuting the trailer, Powell told theater owners that making the movie was “the hardest thing I’ve done in my life.”
“I’ve had my body thrashed and smashed,” Powell added.
The film is an adaptation of the 1982 novel of the same name by Stephen King, which he wrote under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. Wright, best known for his genre-bending fare like “Baby Driver” and “Shaun of the Dead,” directs from a screenplay he wrote with Michael Bacall (the pair previously collaborated on “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”).
In an interview with Empire, Wright said his film was “a road movie in a lot of ways: a very intense, dangerous road movie.” It’s one that finds Powell’s character “moving through different environments and meeting different people as he tries to survive 30 days out in the wild.”
The cast includes Katy O’Brian, Josh Brolin, Lee Pace, Jayme Lawson, Michael Cera, Emilia Jones, William H. Macy, and Sean Hayes. The film opens on November 7.
Powell is one of Hollywood’s hottest new stars, having proved his box office clout with last summer’s “Twisters,” as well as the 2023 rom-com “Anyone but You.” “The Running Man” may give his A-list career even more momentum.