There are three different versions running man, With three different endings. The original 1982 book ends one way, the 1987 film ends another, and now Edgar Wright’s 2025 film with Glen Powell has its own. In our review, we felt the film’s ending was the biggest problem, but one very important person liked it more than us: Stephen King.
A few weeks ago, we learned that Wright and co-writer Michael Bacall had to get King’s permission to change the ending of the story, which they granted. And now, with the movie in theaters, King told Entertainment Weekly what he thought about the ending. “I like the ending of Edgar’s version running man Very much so,” King told EW. “Can’t say too much—spoilers—but I think readers of the novel will be satisfied because they get it both ways. If you understand what I mean, and I bet you do.”
This is not a spoiler-filled answer. Let’s take a look below at what they mean and why we weren’t fans.
So let’s break it down quickly. In the 1987 version of the story, which is completely different in many ways, Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is believed dead, but later turns up. running man The studio sends the show’s host/producer Killian (Richard Dawson) into the field, gets the girl, and lives happily ever after. This is a huge deviation from the 1982 book, where Richards actually dies by flying a plane into the network TV building. The book ends with this profound line, “The explosion was tremendous, lighting up the night like the wrath of God and raining fire twenty blocks away.” Cruel.
Wright’s film is, in a way, a mixture of both. The entire film follows the story of the 1982 novel very closely, so we see Ben Richards (Powell) boarding a plane with a course set for network construction. But things change when he is shot en route and never reaches his destination and everyone assumes Ben is dead. Of course, he isn’t. Through a social media creator we met earlier in the film (Apostle, played by Daniel Ezra), we learned that Ben somehow escaped the plane before it exploded. We then see Ben reunited with his family and eventually attack running man And get revenge on Killian (Josh Brolin).
So you get a mostly happy, world-shaking ending to the movie, but also the book-accurate setup of Ben being on the plane and the plane crashing. This is King’s “have it both ways.” Which we completely understand. Plus, it makes sense. We’re pretty sure modern audiences would not have liked seeing Glen Powell fly a plane into a building and die. Obviously it impacts very differently now than it did in 1982.
However, one of the things we liked most about Wright’s version of the film is how subtle it is. It explains the rules, the locations, all these things in such detail. But it all goes away in the end, when we get this sort of YouTube video that doesn’t explain anything clearly, followed by some very fast-paced wrap-up scenes. Overall, it robs us of the full satisfaction we could have gotten from seeing Ben reunite with his family and take revenge on the network, while also leaving us with more questions than answers. It’s all too fast, too loose and too confusing. Does it give us a happy ending with a twist? Yes, but we expected more.
did you see running manDid you like the ending, Let us know below.
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