{"id":295911,"date":"2025-11-20T00:28:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T00:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/295911\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T00:28:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T00:28:09","slug":"maybe-the-third-version-in-2045-will-stick-the-landing-writer-of-arnold-schwarzeneggers-the-running-man-responds-to-glen-powells-box-office-flop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/295911\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Maybe the Third Version in 2045 Will Stick the Landing’ \u2014 Writer of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s The Running Man Responds to Glen Powell’s Box Office Flop"},"content":{"rendered":"

The writer of Arnold Schwarzenegger\u2019s The Running Man adaptation has offered his take on the new version\u2019s box office struggles.<\/p>\n

According to Deadline<\/a>, Paramount\u2018s $110 million reboot The Running Man<\/a>, headlined by Top Gun: Maverick, Anyone But You, and Twisters star Glen Powell, endured an opening weekend that brought in just $28.2 million globally. Directed by Edgar Wright, The Running Man is a modern adaptation of Stephen King\u2019s 1982 novel of the same name that comes nearly 40 years after Schwarzenegger\u2019s iconic 1987 effort.<\/p>\n

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter<\/a>, Steven E. de Souza, writer of the 1987 movie, responded to 2025’s The Running Man\u2019s box office stumble, saying complaints about its ending rekindle memories of similar complaints about the ending of his version.<\/p>\n

The Running Man Images\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI read it and [felt that] on paper, they got the ending working,\u201d de Souza insisted, having read the script of the new movie. \u201cEven the reviews that love it say it stumbles at the end. It seems to me that this time around, something went wrong between the page and the stage again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warning! Spoilers for The Running Man follow:<\/p>\n

Both 1987’s The Running Man and 2025’s The The Running Man make a similar but significant change to Stephen King\u2019s ending so that it is far less bleak.<\/p>\n

As IGN discusses in our The Running Man ending explained article<\/a>, in King\u2019s ending, protagonist Ben Richards flies a plane straight into the Network building, which presumably kills everyone inside. 1987’s The Running Man does away with this in favor of Arnold infiltrating the Network building alongside an army of rebels to kill demented showrunner Killian and secure his revenge.<\/p>\n

In the 2025 version, Powell gets a plane scene, but Killian engineers a deepfake video showing Richards threatening to crash into the Network building. The video shows a missile taking out the plane, saving the studio audience from certain death and, it seems, killing Richards. But in reality, Richards survives, and Powell ends up doing his best Arnie impression and infiltrating the Network building for a showdown with Killian.<\/p>\n

In THR interview<\/a>, de Souza said adaptations of King\u2019s book had to change the ending because it was so depressing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe book\u2019s ending is a downer, so you need a new ending. I would say that both the ’87 version and this version tweak the ending in pretty much the same way, except that in our version, we had less money, so it\u2019s a little simpler.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe the third version in 2045 will stick the landing.\u201d<\/p>\n

de Souza also agreed that The Running Man failed to appeal to women ahead of its launch, saying the pre-release marketing skewed male. \u201cThere definitely is some validity to that,\u201d he said. \u201cScience-fiction always skews male.\u201d<\/p>\n

While there\u2019s still a chance for The Running Man to recover at the box office, it is now unlikely to make its money back during its theatrical run. The finish line, it seems, has already been crossed. IGN’s The Running Man review<\/a> returned a 7\/10. We said: “The Running Man survives but Edgar Wright and Glen Powell get caught between the bleak sci-fi of Stephen King\u2019s novel and the campy satire of the Arnold Schwarzenegger version.”<\/p>\n

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The writer of Arnold Schwarzenegger\u2019s The Running Man adaptation has offered his take on the new version\u2019s box…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-295911","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}