Thirty-eight years later, running man is back on our screens, to a world that has caught up to the silliness of the original. This new one features a much less massive, but no less watchable, star in Glen Powell, playing runner Ben Richards. Fired from various jobs for insubordination, and caring for a sick child, he is under pressure to join America’s favorite kill-or-be-killed game show, after a producer identifies him as “numerically the angriest person to ever audition.”
Slight changes have also been made to the premise of the show. Instead of navigating a series of video-game-like levels for the duration of a TV broadcast, Richards now must survive in the real world for 30 days, monitored by network TV camera droids, pursued by armed “hunters”, private police goons, and a general public who will spot and film the runners using a proprietary app on their smartphones. The longer he lasts, and the more pursuers he can kill, the more money he will make. He was cheered (and booed) by a vast audience of brain-dead oafs called Running Fans, glued to their screens 24/7. Like Schwarzenegger’s Richard before him, Powell transitions from onscreen villain to beloved folk hero, pandering to the cameras as his antics drive ratings.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because this new version running manWritten and directed by Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), is taken as much from the original film and Stephen King’s source novel as it is from current reality. A modern America overseen by a game show president, where ICE squads team up with Dr. Phil McGraw to turn deportation raids into reality television, it appears. running man Remake. But this is the problem. Satire depends on caricature. And the new version is a bit exaggerated. In a world where Netflix’s South Korean thriller series is a success, does the idea of a deadly game show seem so far-fetched? squid game (itself is a variation running man format) obtained a genuine, licensed squid game-style competitive reality TV show? Or when a smiling teenage YouTuber named “MrBeast” tempts contestants with ten grand to sit in a bathtub full of snakes? A few weeks ago I watched live as New York Giants rookie player Cam Scatebo’s ankle got twisted 45-degrees, as if cranked by an invisible wrench, while a bar full of rival fans cheered.