{"id":31481,"date":"2025-07-29T16:43:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T16:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/31481\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T16:43:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T16:43:10","slug":"edgar-wright-is-not-trying-to-remake-the-arnold-schwarzenegger-version-and-thats-a-good-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/31481\/","title":{"rendered":"Edgar Wright is NOT trying to remake the Arnold Schwarzenegger version (and that’s a good thing)"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

1987\u2019s\u00a0The Running Man\u00a0is definitely a cult hit among Arnold Schwarzenegger\u2019s movies, but it tends to get overlooked among some of the other classics he made. After all, it came out the same year as\u00a0Predator<\/a>, and let\u2019s face facts\u2014it\u2019s no\u00a0Predator. Perhaps that\u2019s why Schwarzenegger himself once said it was the perfect movie of his to be remade. Everyone involved with the new version\u2014especially Edgar Wright\u2014would probably say it\u2019s less a remake and more a fresh adaptation of Stephen King\u2019s novel, which he wrote under the pseudonym Richard Bachman.<\/p>\n

Based on the trailer alone, it does seem to be a somewhat more faithful adaptation, retaining an element that was ditched from the Schwarzenegger movie: Ben Richards is more impoverished, blacklisted from his profession, and trying to raise money to treat his ill daughter. The movie also keeps the fact that he has to periodically record messages and can travel anywhere in the world. That said, I can\u2019t see this version ending with Richards\u2019 family being murdered and him becoming a suicide bomber. Just an inkling\u2026<\/p>\n

So why did the 1987 movie make so many changes? There are a few reasons. For one thing, back in 1987, they didn\u2019t have the money to make this a globe-trotting thriller. It actually wasn\u2019t a particularly expensive movie, costing $27 million\u2014not all that much for the era. Let\u2019s not forget that Schwarzenegger, while a star in 1987, wasn\u2019t the behemoth he later became.\u00a0Twins<\/a>\u00a0was arguably his first\u00a0mega\u00a0hit, followed by\u00a0Total Recall,\u00a0T2, and\u00a0True Lies.<\/p>\n

Arnie\u2019s movies prioritized fun, so the decision was made to bring in his\u00a0Commando\u00a0screenwriter, Steven E. de Souza, and ramp up the comic aspects. Instead of an unemployed father, Richards would be a single cop framed for a massacre by a repressive government, who escapes jail, is recaptured, and forced to participate. It would be an upbeat film that bore next to no resemblance to King\u2019s novel.<\/p>\n

Oddly, though, the fact that it ditched the King material might have been what made it great. Reality TV shows weren\u2019t really a thing back then, and the movie\u2019s grotesque spoof of TV game shows was prescient\u2014that\u2019s essentially what the reality genre became. Perhaps the smartest piece of casting was hiring\u00a0Family Feud\u00a0host Richard Dawson to play the movie\u2019s host, Killian, as a satire of his own persona\u2014right down to him kissing all the women in his audience. He was so infamous for this that his nickname was \u201cThe Kissing Bandit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Given Arnie\u2019s size, the hunters were a colorful bunch, with him taking on former wrestlers like Professor Toru Tanaka and Jesse \u201cThe Body\u201d Ventura. Schwarzenegger essentially plays the character he always played in his eighties action movies: wisecracking and a \u201cnormal guy,\u201d despite looking anything but. The whole movie was designed to be a lark, so you have him getting a sexy Latina love interest played by Maria Conchita Alonso and some rock \u2019n\u2019 roll buddies, including a resistance group run by Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac and Dweezil Zappa\u2014who, that same year, played guitar on the video for Don Johnson\u2019s \u201cHeartbeat,\u201d a\u00a0hell\u00a0of a song. But I digress.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, Schwarzenegger was never happy with\u00a0The Running Man. He hated that the original director, Andrew Davis, was replaced (they\u2019d work together later on\u00a0Collateral Damage) with Paul Michael Glaser\u2014best known for playing Starsky on\u00a0Starsky and Hutch\u2014as director. Arnold has a point: Glaser wasn\u2019t on the level of other action directors he worked with. Although Glaser had directed a few good\u00a0Miami Vice\u00a0episodes and did a decent job making the movie hip with off-kilter casting, some of the cringier \u201980s stuff\u2014like the Harold Faltermeyer score, long dance numbers choreographed by Paula Abdul, and the cheesy love theme by John Parr\u2014hasn\u2019t exactly stood the test of time. Still, the \u201980s camp factor is part of the appeal. I get it though\u2014Arnie\u2019s not really a camp kind of guy, which is why many of his movies feel more timeless. I imagine a director like Paul Verhoeven might have been needed to make\u00a0The Running Man truly live up to its potential.<\/p>\n

The movie was only a modest box office hit, earning $38 million in the U.S., paling in comparison to what\u00a0Predatormade. But it was a smash on video and cable, which is where a generation of ravenous action fans discovered it\u2014including yours truly.<\/p>\n

While\u00a0The Running Man\u00a0isn\u2019t a total classic, it\u2019s also a ton of fun. And Arnold has a point: a remake could actually outdo the original. One can see why he\u2019s so gung-ho about the new version\u2014especially since it appears to be set in a world where he was once president?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1987\u2019s\u00a0The Running Man\u00a0is definitely a cult hit among Arnold Schwarzenegger\u2019s movies, but it tends to get overlooked among…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,19249,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-31481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-the-running-man","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31481","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=31481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}