New Stephen King Adaptation Will Be Better Than Schwarzenegger's, Star Claims
Taking shots at the Governator to promote the upcoming remake, are we?
The sheer number of Stephen King adaptations is so overwhelming they have long become a genre of their own. Hollywood loves taking the celebrated author’s stories to big and small screens, resulting in over 100 adaptations total — but quite a few of them are tackling the same stories, remaking and rebooting each other to no avail.
The dystopian Stephen King classic is getting a remake with a Top Gun: Maverick star soon, and the actor claims it’ll be better than the Schwarzenegger-led original.
New Running Man Will Respect the King
In 1987, Arnold Schwarzenegger played the lead part in Paul Michael Glaser’s The Running Man. The movie didn’t do too poorly, but not too well, either. As an adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same name, it barely resembled the book.
Glen Powell became famous for his supporting role, and his acting career has only been going uphill since then. In the near future, the star actor will play the lead role in Edgar Wright’s upcoming The Running Man remake — and he claims it’ll be better.
“I've been an Edgar Wright fan my whole life. And talking to him about Running Man, what's been really incredible is his take on it. It's very much not the original Schwarzenegger flick, it's much more grounded in the Stephen King version. <...> Less debris, more fists,” Powell shared with USA Today.
Powell’s Ready to Wrestle a Pro Wrestler
In the original The Running Man adaptation, Arnold Schwarzenegger has to fight Jesse “The Body” Ventura, a then pro wrestler, and Jim Brown, an NFL star player. Seeing how the upcoming remake is likely to inherit that trope, Glen Powell already knows the wrestler and the NFL star he’d like to face off with in his movie.
“If I want to win the fight, or if I just want to get my ass kicked? I feel like J.J. Watt wants an acting career, and then on the wrestling side, I think we bring in maybe Ronda Rousey. I haven't thought about who I want to face off with. It's a survival story, the movie is really fun, but they're going to throw everything they got at me,” the actor mused.
As much as we love the Arnie classic, we’re very much down for a more faithful adaptation, and who could pull it off better than Edgar Wright? We hope Glen Powell’s promises stand true and we get a more Stephen King-ish version of the Stephen King novella come to life before our eyes soon… When they’re ready.
Source: USA Today