Dystopian novel's film adaption is 'running' to Chinese cinemas

As one of Hollywood's biggest new releases, The Running Man — a dystopian action thriller adapted from Stephen King's 1982 novel — is set to open in theaters across the Chinese mainland on Friday.

Directed by Edgar Wright and written by Wright and Michael Bacall, the film, starring American actor Glen Powell, fictionalizes the world's economy in ruins and the United States as a totalitarian dystopia.

Ben Richards, a working-class father portrayed by Powell, struggles with severe financial hardship. To raise money for his gravely ill daughter, the protagonist has no choice but to join a deadly television show in which contestants, allowed to flee anywhere in the world, are hunted by killers hired to track them down.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, who played Richards in the novel's 1987 film adaptation, appears on the currency used in the new film.

Director Wright said that he and screenwriter Bacall delved deeply into the narrative manipulation mechanisms of reality television, adding that King, the novel's author, had astonishingly foreseen the developmental trajectory of reality TV over the following four decades, where the narrative of a show is meticulously crafted solely to pursue extreme entertainment value.