The Running Man star Glen Powell says Edgar Wright's new Stephen King adaptation has similarities to Braveheart and Gladiator: "Ordinary people who are trying to make up for terrible things that have happened"

Glen Powell Compares The Running Man to Braveheart and Gladiator

Glen Powell, star of the upcoming dystopian action drama The Running Man, draws unexpected comparisons between his new film and historical epics like Braveheart and Gladiator.

Speaking to GamesRadar+ in London, Powell explains, "Ordinary people who are trying to save individual family members or make up for terrible things that have happened to family members... end up getting pulled into a greater story where their problems aren't unique, and their sense of the world and how they're interacting with their world is... they're almost finding humanity in the inhumane."

Based on Stephen King's 1982 novel (written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman) and directed by Edgar Wright, The Running Man follows Powell’s character, Ben Richards, an out-of-work father desperate to buy medicine for his sick daughter. Out of options, Richards enters the eponymous reality show, where contestants can win $1 billion if they evade a team of Hunters for 30 days—though no one has ever succeeded before.

Powell also cites Sidney Lumet’s Network (1976) as a tonal influence on the movie, highlighting the way media dehumanizes human life in pursuit of ratings. "That was all about sort of the lengths that people go to," he explains.

The Running Man is set to arrive in UK cinemas on November 12 and US theaters on November 14, 2025.

References:

• GamesRadar+ Interview with Glen Powell, 2025.

• King, Stephen. The Running Man. 1982.

• Lumet, Sidney. Network. 1976.