Edgar Wright Changed The Dark Ending of THE RUNNING MAN, But Stephen King Approves of the New One
Stephen King season is officially here, and while fans are gearing up for HBO’s IT: Welcome to Derry later this month, there’s another King adaptation looming on the horizon that fans are excited about, Edgar Wright’s The Running Man.
The remake, starring Glen Powell, Josh Brolin, Colman Domingo, and Lee Pace, hits theaters November 14, and one of the hottest talking points is how Wright and co-writer Michael Bacall decided to handle the book’s infamous ending. Spoiler alert: they didn’t.
Fans of King’s 1982 novel know that the climax is brutal and unforgettable. The protagonist hijacks a plane and crashes it into a skyscraper as revenge against the villain, an ending that was already dark but has become especially unsettling in the post-9/11 world.
From the very beginning, Wright knew that conclusion wouldn’t fly (no pun intended). In an interview with Film Stories, he admitted sending the revised ending to King himself was one of the most stressful moments of making the movie:
“Possibly the most nerve-wracking day of the entire production was writing to King with an attachment of the screenplay and pressing send. Everybody knew at the outset that [the novel’s ending] wasn’t going to be part of this adaptation exactly the way.”
Luckily for Wright, the Master of Horror embraced the change of the ending.
“He realised even before he read it that we weren’t going to be doing the ending from the book. And when [King] emailed back, he said, ‘I was very curious how you were going to tackle the ending, and I think you did a great job.’ So I was very happy with that.”
That blessing from King himself should give fans confidence that even though Wright and Bacall crafted something new, it still captures the spirit of the novel without leaning into a deeply problematic finale.
The Running Man is set in a dystopian future where desperate contestants volunteer to be hunted by government “stalkers” on live TV. The only way to win is to survive, and King’s book pulls no punches when exploring the brutal game.
The 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film famously ditched much of the novel’s story in favor of campy action, so Wright’s version is aiming to be much closer to King’s original vision, just without the skyscraper-crashing finale.
With just over a month to go until release, anticipation is building. Wright has promised a more faithful and intense adaptation than the ’80s version, and with King’s seal of approval, fans can breathe easier knowing that while the ending may be different, it’s still King-approved.