{"id":142018,"date":"2025-11-18T23:53:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T23:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/142018\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T23:53:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T23:53:07","slug":"running-man-writer-steven-de-souza-on-glen-powell-reboot-flopping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/142018\/","title":{"rendered":"Running Man Writer Steven de Souza on Glen Powell Reboot Flopping"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tGlen Powell<\/a>\u2018s new version of The Running Man<\/a> has sparked discussion after the film got off to a sluggish start at the box office.<\/p>\n

\n\tParamount Pictures<\/a> released director Edgar Wright<\/a>\u2018s movie over the weekend, and it opened in second place<\/a> at the domestic box office with $16.5 million for a lackluster global sum of $28 million. The dystopian action film adapts Stephen King<\/a>\u2018s 1982 novel of the same name that previously served as the basis for director Paul Michael Glaser\u2019s 1987 movie version<\/a> starring Arnold Schwarzenegger<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tSteven E. de Souza, who wrote the 1987 feature, tells The Hollywood Reporter that some of the reviews for the new one remind him of critical response that dinged the Schwarzenegger movie\u2019s ending. De Souza, who has an additional literary material credit on Wright\u2019s film, notes that he has read the script but not yet seen the finished product. The 1987 movie collected $38 million at the box office ($109 million today).<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI read it and [felt that] on paper, they got the ending working,\u201d de Souza says of the new film. \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

\n\tThe screenwriter notes that the adaptations have been tasked with finding ways to lighten the ending from King\u2019s source material. \u201cThe book\u2019s ending is a downer, so you need a new ending,\u201d says de Souza, who is also known for penning such projects as 48 Hrs. and Die Hard. \u201cI would say that both the \u201987 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 He quips, \u201cMaybe the third version in 2045 will stick the landing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tArnold Schwarzenegger in 1987\u2019s The Running Man.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTriStar Pictures\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

\n\tDe Souza says he has read analysis detailing perceived reasons why the new film may have underperformed in its opening, including that the crowd skewed heavily male. THR\u2019s chief film critic David Rooney wrote in his review of Powell\u2019s The Running Man<\/a> that the movie \u201chas no shortage of action and adrenaline\u201d but \u201cends up feeling hollow.\u201d It holds a 65 percent approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat people are saying is there was very little in the marketing here that would appeal to women,\u201d de Souza says. \u201cThere definitely is some validity to that. Science-fiction always skews male.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDe Souza finds it heartening that reactions to the movie have included people sharing their favorite moments from both the 1987 feature and the Powell version. \u201cI was totally rooting for it because I figured the more people see this movie, [then they] will want to go out and rent the old one, just for comparison\u2019s sakes,\u201d he says. \u201cSo, win-win.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tThe screenwriter adds that he finds himself surprised whenever creatives are unhappy<\/a> about their older projects getting rebooted: \u201cThat\u2019s a reaction I can\u2019t understand. I would never be upset.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Glen Powell\u2018s new version of The Running Man has sparked discussion after the film got off to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[10908,430,59277,156,8846,111,139,69,446,50541,26513,29182],"class_list":{"0":"post-142018","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-arnold-schwarzenegger","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-edgar-wright","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-glen-powell","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nz","16":"tag-paramount-pictures","17":"tag-reboot","18":"tag-stephen-king","19":"tag-the-running-man"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}