{"id":261819,"date":"2025-11-14T05:32:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T05:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/261819\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T05:32:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T05:32:09","slug":"the-running-man-director-edgar-wright-on-arnold-schwarzenegger-cameo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/261819\/","title":{"rendered":"The Running Man Director Edgar Wright on Arnold Schwarzenegger Cameo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTwitter was once a place where notable filmmakers offered a piece of themselves in between regimented press tours. Sometimes, they\u2019d answer fan questions, or they\u2019d go back and forth with each other in an effort to provide advice to aspiring filmmakers. And in some instances, one of their tweets would actually lead to collaboration, something Edgar Wright<\/a> knows firsthand.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2017, Wright responded to a random tweet to say that The Running Man<\/a> is the remake he\u2019d most want to undertake. At 14, he\u2019d read Stephen King<\/a>\u2019s (as Richard Bachman) 2025-set dystopian novel of the same, but he wasn\u2019t old enough to see the Arnold Schwarzenegger-led adaptation in U.K. cinemas the year prior. Once he finally caught up to Paul Michael Glaser\u2019s 1987 film a couple years later, he realized that King\u2019s book was still largely untapped, thereby hatching his longtime desire to reapproach the source material. Producer Simon Kinberg, remembering Wright\u2019s tweet, then offered him that very opportunity a few years ago.<\/p>\n

\n\tReteaming with his Scott Pilgrim vs. the World co-writer, Michael Bacall, the co-writers took their cues from King\u2019s work and positioned their story on Ben Richards, but not the \u201cButcher of Bakersfield\u201d \u00e0 la Schwarzenegger\u2019s take. Instead, Ben is a working-class guy whose temperament has cost him the ability to support his struggling family in the film\u2019s corporation-controlled future. So he\u2019s forced to audition for reality television that\u2019s produced by the authoritarian \u201cNetwork,\u201d and despite his original intent, he\u2019s talked into participating as a \u201cRunner\u201d in their deadliest game show known as The Running Man. If Ben survives the headhunting pursuits of the show\u2019s \u201cHunters\u201d for 30 days, he can pocket up to $1 billion.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhenever filmmakers adapt King\u2019s work, they usually admit to being terrified of his response. It\u2019s hard enough that he\u2019s arguably the most celebrated author to ever pen genre fiction, but his famous disapproval of Stanley Kubrick\u2019s adaptation of his 1977 novel, The Shining, inevitably comes to mind. However, being the social butterfly that he is, Wright already had a well-established email relationship with King.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c21 years ago, Stephen King gave us a press quote for Shaun of the Dead, and it was mind-blowing to me at the time that we got a rave from Stephen King on our poster,\u201d Wright tells The Hollywood Reporter. \u201cI\u2019ve then had this email correspondence with him over the years where he\u2019d always be generous about my movies. But we would mostly email about music. I\u2019d sometimes send him vinyl on his birthday \u2014\u00a0bands like King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Sunflower Bean.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe conversation eventually turned to Wright\u2019s development of The Running Man, mainly because King had contractual approval over his choice of leading man and any major story changes, such as the ending. Wright and his Ben Richards casting of Glen Powell<\/a> soon cleared both of those hurdles with flying colors, but there was still overwhelming pressure to now fulfill those expectations on set and in the edit. Fortunately, Wright\u2019s pleasant experience with King only continued.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe email I got after he watched the movie had the subject heading in all caps. It just said, \u2018WOW,\u2019\u201d Wright recalls. \u201cHe said lots of nice things about the movie, but then he said, \u2018It\u2019s faithful enough to the novel that fans will be happy, but different enough that it kept me excited.\u2019 And I thought, \u2018Well, I can\u2019t ask for anything more than that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe mission of the film may have been about honoring the original novel, but Wright still made a point to recognize the cult fans of the 1987 film. It may not be mentioned in the same breath as Schwarzenegger\u2019s more signature films such as Terminator 2, True Lies and Total Recall, but respect is still paid. And as revealed in the marketing, Schwarzenegger even makes a photographic cameo as the presidential face of this near future\u2019s $100 bill. The Easter egg actually has double meaning. It not only acknowledges the actor behind the original Ben Richards, but it\u2019s also a cheeky reference to another sci-fi actioner.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a shared joke with the Demolition Man universe,\u201d Wright shares. \u201cIn Demolition Man, they mention President Schwarzenegger<\/a>, so it\u2019s my little shout out to both Arnie and [Demolition Man co-screenwriter] Daniel Waters.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBelow, during a recent conversation with THR, Wright also discusses how his and Powell\u2019s friendship with the Mission: Impossible brain trust inspired The Running Man.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

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

\t\t\t\t\tDirector Edgar Wright<\/a> and Glen Powell on the set of The Running Man.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tParamount Pictures<\/p>\n

\n\tEvery time I talk to you, I always try to pump you for information about your contributions to the Mission: Impossible franchise, which features a running man who sometimes wears disguises in a race against time. So when I found out you were making The Running Man, I theorized that it partially stemmed from you spending so much time under the hood of the Mission movies and wanting to do something with a similar engine. So how right or wrong is this theory?<\/p>\n

\n\tYes, I would say it\u2019s partially [right]. I love the genre. What Chris [McQuarrie] and Tom have done in the last three or four movies set a template for modern action. I was actually busy making The Running Man, so the recent one, The Final Reckoning, was the first one that I had not seen an early cut of since Fallout. Chris usually invites me to see an early cut, so I saw early cuts of Fallout and Dead Reckoning, but I didn\u2019t see Final Reckoning until the premiere.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tGlen [Powell] has obviously worked with both Chris and Tom, and he certainly came to this with the same desire as me to do as much stunt work as is safely possible. Glen will probably tell you this as well, but Tom<\/a> was his first call after he got the role. (Laughs.) \u201cWhat advice can you give me?\u201d And when I say advice, I literally mean advice for running on camera.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the real origin story goes much further back?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, I read the book when I was about 14, and I read it before I saw the 1987 movie. I was too young to see the 1987 version at the cinema in the U.K. where it was rated 18. And by the time I saw it a couple of years later, I was very aware that the film, whilst really entertaining, was radically different to the book. So even before I was in the business, it always stuck in my head that there was a Stephen King book where large portions of the story were not on screen. That\u2019s why I hesitate to use the word remake with our Running Man because I really think it\u2019s a new adaptation of the same source material.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe book is a first-person narration, and Ben Richards is in every single scene of our film. You don\u2019t see any scenes or go somewhere else without him, apart from what\u2019s sometimes on the TV. You don\u2019t have any information that he doesn\u2019t also have. As such, the action is very subjective, and hopefully the audience is living vicariously through him in the game. That meant that Glen is front and center of every single action set piece, and we designed them around what he can do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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

\t\t\t\t\tDirector Edgar Wright on the set of The Running Man.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tParamount Pictures<\/p>\n

\n\tAs you said, the original film was only a loose adaptation of the book. It also wasn\u2019t a box office smash hit by any means. It has its cult fans, but it really hasn\u2019t had an afterlife like Blade Runner or even Scott Pilgrim vs. the World<\/a>. Were you even more willing to tackle this because there wasn\u2019t a giant shadow to contend with from the first movie?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt does have a passionate cult following that I\u2019m very aware of, and I would hope that the people who love the 1987 film would love this. But I don\u2019t think that factored into it as much as me knowing that there was a different movie in [the source material].\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe best remakes of films or the best new adaptations are where you\u2019re doing something radically different with it. David Cronenberg\u2019s The Fly is a great example. It\u2019s wildly different to the 1958 one, but I can enjoy both. When there are remakes that feel like a shot-for-shot remake, I wonder, \u201cWhy even bother if you\u2019re just doing the same beats as the other film?\u201d So those movies don\u2019t really interest me, and they feel a bit like karaoke. But this felt like a fresh movie because the source material hadn\u2019t been fully adapted, and most of the characters in the book are not in the 1987 film.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut that film does have a following, and until you said it, I wasn\u2019t even aware of how that film did. In the \u201880s, nobody really cared about that stuff. There wasn\u2019t social media, and box office wasn\u2019t the subject of fervent discussion within hours of release. Movies were just out. I love John Carpenter\u2019s The Thing and Ridley Scott\u2019s Blade Runner, but the fact of how they did or didn\u2019t do didn\u2019t affect my enjoyment of either.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou previously told the story of how Stephen King had to approve Glen Powell\u2019s casting. Does King have this stipulation on all his adaptations? Or is it only on certain titles?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThat is a good question. It might be a more recent thing. When he was starting out, he probably didn\u2019t have those kinds of rights over the material, but I actually don\u2019t know the answer to that. In terms of Glen, I don\u2019t think he was completely aware of everything he\u2019d done. So I was able to point him in the direction of a film that I thought summed up Glen at his best and showed what he could bring to this. That was Richard Linklater\u2019s Hit Man, which Glen co-wrote. So I said to Stephen over email, \u201cYou should check out Hit Man.\u201d But it hadn\u2019t come out yet, so the producers got a link for Stephen to watch. And once he saw it, that was the end of that conversation.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe other thing was him having script approval, but my own experience with him has been fantastic. He\u2019s been immensely supportive. Way back, 21 years ago, Stephen King gave us a press quote for Shaun of the Dead, and it was mind-blowing to me at the time that we got a rave from Stephen King on our poster. It was wild. I\u2019ve then had this email correspondence with him over the years where he\u2019d always be generous about my movies. He was really nice about Baby Driver and Last Night in Soho. But we would mostly email about music, and I would send him rock music recommendations. I\u2019d sometimes send him vinyl on his birthday \u2014\u00a0bands like King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Sunflower Bean and other things that I was into.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut what\u2019s funny is that even though we had each other\u2019s emails, I didn\u2019t email him about Running Man until it was very close to happening. It would\u2019ve been too heartbreaking if the film didn\u2019t end up getting made and I had already gotten in touch with him. I didn\u2019t want to be the boy who cried wolf. So I got in touch with him at the last minute when there was a script about to be potentially green lit, and it was a funny email to send because he must\u2019ve known that I was working on it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI sort of said, \u201cAs I know you are probably aware, I have been working on The Running Man since early \u201822.\u201d (Laughs.) So he was really, really complimentary about the adaptation, and that\u2019s a blessing and a curse. It\u2019s a blessing, because it\u2019s great that he loved it, but then you have to live up to that. When you\u2019re making a movie, you\u2019re trying to live up to the movie that\u2019s in your head, but now I had to live up to the movie that\u2019s in his head as well. So it definitely added extra pressure in terms of making the movie. It was like, \u201cAh, I\u2019ve got to deliver for Stephen King.\u201d But it\u2019s a good pressure to have.<\/p>\n

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

\t\t\t\t\tDirector Edgar Wright and his Scott Pilgrim star Michael Cera reunite on the set of The Running Man.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tParamount Pictures<\/p>\n

\n\tDo you recall his reaction to the Michael Cera section of the film?<\/p>\n

\n\tIn terms of the script and the movie, he talked about some specifics, but he mostly just talked about the movie overall. I spoke to him on the phone for the first time after he\u2019d watched it. We\u2019d only emailed over the years, and when he said he was watching it, I said, \u201cHere\u2019s my number. Call me afterwards.\u201d Of course, it was very nerve-wracking knowing he, the original author, was going to watch it. \u201cOh my God, what is he going to say?\u201d But he emailed me first before he called me, and the email I got after he watched the movie had the subject heading in all caps. It just said, \u201cWOW.\u201d And I thought, \u201cOkay, this is a good start.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSo it was a really, really nice email, but then he said something in the email that I think is the best reaction you could get from the author. He said lots of nice things about the movie, but then he said, \u201cIt\u2019s faithful enough to the novel that fans will be happy, but different enough that it kept me excited.\u201d And I thought, \u201cWell, I can\u2019t ask for anything more than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen I first saw the trailer without knowing the nature of the project, I thought it was saying that Arnold\u2019s Ben Richards became so famous that he\u2019s now the face of currency. But it\u2019s actually President Arnold Schwarzenegger on $100 bills.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWe thought of it as an alternate reality where they changed the rules so people born outside the United States could run for president.<\/p>\n

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

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

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tParamount Pictures<\/p>\n

\n\tDid you just feel obligated to show people a glimpse of him?<\/p>\n

\n\tI thought it was a nice little nod [to the \u201887 film]. [Co-writer] Michael Bacall had written the idea about a new currency, \u201cnew dollars,\u201d into the script. You only see the Arnold one in closeup, but we did all of the bills with different presidents. And I have to give credit to [screenwriter] Daniel Waters. It\u2019s a shared joke with the Demolition Man universe. In Demolition Man, they mention President Schwarzenegger<\/a>, so it\u2019s my little shout out to both Arnie and Daniel Waters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWho were your Edgar Wrights during post-production? Who gave you valuable feedback in the same way that you do for McQuarrie and other filmmakers?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWell, I\u2019ve got to say there wasn\u2019t as much feedback as usual because we hadn\u2019t started making this movie a year ago. So I only watched it with the finished picture and sound just over a week ago. I\u2019ve never made a movie that\u2019s been finished this close to the release. When we were at CinemaCon in April, we hadn\u2019t even started editing the movie. And believe me, I\u2019m not complaining at all because this is the greatest job in the world and I\u2019m very grateful to be working. But making this movie is the result of a lot of six- and seven-day weeks in the last year and 16- or 17-hour days. So we didn\u2019t really have that many friends and family screenings at all because we didn\u2019t have the time. Most of the time was spent gearing up to have test screenings, and we had two test screenings.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut I\u2019ve done that before. On Baby Driver, I definitely remember Phil [Lord] and Chris [Miller] and Sam Mendes coming to see the movie. I think Ron Howard came to see the movie at one point as well. But in this case, we just didn\u2019t have time. We would screen it for crew. We would just screen it amongst ourselves. We\u2019d pour over shots and work on it each week so intensely, but you\u2019ve also got to see it as a whole piece. In our editing suite in Soho, there\u2019s a screening room next door, and when we could, we\u2019d show it to the crew so everybody could see it on the big screen, not just on a shot-by-shot basis. So I\u2019d love to say that there was a very starry friends-and-family screening, but there wasn\u2019t time. Chris Macquarie hasn\u2019t even seen it yet. [After this interview, Wright\u2019s vast Rolodex of industry friends showed up for his Oct. 28 special screening, as well as the Nov. 9 premiere in New York.]<\/p>\n

\n\t***
The Running Man opens in movie theaters on Nov. 14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Twitter was once a place where notable filmmakers offered a piece of themselves in between regimented press tours.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,35784,96,15064,19249,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-261819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-edgar-wright","tag-entertainment","tag-stephen-king","tag-the-running-man","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}