Edgar Wright's The Running Man is the latest offering in a busy calendar year for Stephen King screen adaptations. Declan Lynch sifts through some of the horror master's back catalogue.
In the ever-expanding, extended and integrated cinema and streaming franchise multiverses, originals are a rare event. Cinemas and streamers want IP. If you’ve read it as a book you are more likely to watch it as a movie. And if you’ve seen the movie years ago, then you may be more likely to watch an updated version. Cinema reheated. Content. Never has the trend been more pronounced. And yet, in the case of one particular talent, one could argue it has always been thus. Stephen King. Since Brian de Palma adapted King’s debut novel Carrie almost fifty years ago, the author's work has been adapted for the screen hundreds of times.
Few authors inspire this level of screen obsession. The weekend saw the release of the Edgar Wright-directed The Running Man. This comes hot on the heels of Mike Flanagan’s Life of Chuck, the Osgood Perkins-directed adaptation of The Monkey and Francis Laurence’s The Long Walk. Add to this Welcome To Derry, the HBO TV series based on King’s novel It. Five titles in a single year. You could argue King is experiencing a resurgence, were it not for the fact that his work has hardly ever left our screens (or consciousness). And expect no let up. 2026 will see Mike Flanagan (who's already tackled Gerald's Game and Doctor Sleep) delivering a serialisation of Carrie. If Flanagan’s Netflix series Midnight Mass is anything to go by, we can expect something special.
But that’s not always the case with Stephen King adaptations. The results are mixed. And The Running Man is no different. Based on his 1982 futuristic novel where government controls the population through a violent, televised game show, there’s lots of potential. In director Edgar Wright the studio has a true creative talent. And in leading man Glen Powell, the film has the star power to command the budget required to deliver King’s dystopian world. It also boasts a strong cast: Josh Brolin, Michael Cera, Emilia Jones, Daniel Ezra, William H. Macy and Colman Domingo all turn up, ready for action. Colman sizzles as Running Man TV host Bobby Thompson and Brolin’s turn as untrustworthy studio exec Dan Killian is only missing a moustache to twirl. Jones and Macy are both underserved, but deliver with what they are given. The movie looks great and offers several nods and winks to its 1987 Schwarzenegger-starring action-packed predecessor. But while that Paul Michael Glaser-directed version (yes, he of Starsky and Hutch) leans into the camp theatrics, Wright’s 2025 update is attempting a more gritty tone. Much of it works, there’s some solid action sequences and comedy moments, but plenty of missed opportunities too. Could it be that following his very public parting with Marvel studios on Ant-Man, director Edgar Wright is still trying to prove himself as a blockbuster-friendly pair of hands? If so, job done. The work here lacks the fizz of his films Scott Pilgrim vs the World and Baby Driver. But maybe that’s the point. The Running Man is a studio movie. It’s also R-rated. After watching, it’s hard not to wonder what the real Edgar Wright would have done with this? Or would the same cast re-tooled as the colourful rogues gallery of gameshow villains that made the 1987 version so memorable have been more entertaining? Comparison is the thief of joy. Maybe remakes are too. And maybe The Running Man is a bit of a metaphor for the world of King stories. The author is often criticised for his unsatisfying endings. Similarly, with the author's screen adaptations a frequently asked question is whether they can ‘land the plane’? Mr. Wright takes this question to a literal place, leaving viewers at a high altitude to make up their own minds.
In the meantime, here’s one lowly movie fan's guide to seven of Stephen King's screen works that do. And before we start, I can tell you that on another day I could credibly argue that in reverse order this list should read:
7. Doctor Sleep
6. The Dead Zone
5. Carrie
3. The Shawshank Redemption
2. The Shining
1. Stand by Me
All stone cold classics. But not today. So let’s go for some deeper cuts instead.
8. It (2017)
Hard not to mention the film that delivered Mr. King his biggest success to date. Andy Muschietti’s box office monster ($700m+) successfully finds the heart of King’s 1986 coming-of-age novel - that same year saw the release of Stand by Me, which was based on King’s 1982 novel The Body. Muschietti’s treatment of King’s source material shows a deep understanding of the magic of youth, friendship, trauma and fear that make both books so compelling. Retocating the story of King's Loser Club kids to the eighties made the story more attractive to an audience already feasting on nostalgia-laden shows like Stranger Things. Add the iconic Pennywise killer clown played by Bill Skarsgård and Stephen King is back (again) and exposed to a whole new generation of readers.
7. The Running Man (1987)
On Egdar Wright's currect press tour for his 2025 version, the director claims his movie "holds a funhouse mirror up to our reality". King's original novel presents a reality show obsessed America where a totalian government precides over a society where the gap between the have and have-nots has widened beyond recognition. King wrote this novel in 1972 and set it in 2025. It was released in 1985 under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. Its a dark vision of our times. While Wright's film stays much truer to the orignal darker text, director Paul Michael Glaser's paints his dystopian world in broader strokes. The film is largely a vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger and is acutely aware of his limitations. It's full of corny one-liners, off-colour jokes and a series of highly entertaining baddies. It's ridiculous, but a lot of fun. Push your sleeves back to the elbows for that final fist-clenching closing credits song. Watching it in 2025, one is reminded of how 1980's our now-present looked back then.
6. Creepshow (1982)
I love portmanteau movies! And any film that partners horror legend George A. Romero with King is worth the watch. This tribute to the EC horror comics of the 1950s also boasts a hefty dose of stars across its five tales; Hal Holbrook, Ed Harris, Leslie Nielsen, Ted Danson, Adrienne Barbeau and E.G. Marshall. King cameos, too. It’s entertaining throughout and never takes itself too seriously. The real MVP here is make-up SFX legend Tom Savini, who brings Fluffy to life in The Crate. Neither writer or director are at their best, but both talents are undeniably present and having fun.
5. Pet Sematary (1989)
Bleak stuff. A couple whose young son is killed by a speeding truck make the rather poor decision to bury him in an ancient burial ground. It’s Stephen King, so the kid returns. And he’s not too happy about the whole thing. Mary Lambert directs, King cameos as a minister. Viewed through a modern lens, it's easy to argue that it leans too heavily into some of the more supernatural horror tropes of the day. The book’s depth and resonance comes from its depiction of the profound grief suffered by parents in the loss of a child. There is a 2019 re-adaption, where this theme is more central. But Lambert’s approach is truer to the novel, and for me is a more satisfying watch. Not to mention that the film also birthed the enviably poetic Ramones chorus "I don't want to be buried in a pet sematary". The world is a better place for that.
4. The Mist (2007)
The Mist is an unloved sibling or sorts to Frank Darabont’s critically acclaimed adaptations of King’s The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. Shot on a modest budget, the premise is simple; after a storm, a strange mist traps a community in a small town in… (you guessed it) Maine. The action mostly takes place in the local convenience store, where townsfolk hold up. Pitting the rational mind against a sense of increasing sense of fear and paranoia, it's packed with characters that are instantly recognisable. It offers horror fans that much-loved opportunity to guess who gets killed next. And what’s in the mist? It’s a Stephen King novel so you can probably guess, but with King, it’s rarely just about the horror. It’s about the human condition, and what happens when it is tested. The movie is a testament to writer/director Darabont, who makes some bold choices with the original novella. Now Darabont is directing two of the final chapters of the forthcoming and final Stranger Things series. Still out there whipping up a scare or two. In the meantime, watch The Mist.
3. Cujo (1983)
"A rabid Saint Bernard terrorizes a mother and her son after their car breaks down on a remote farm". As loglines should, this tells you everything you need to know about Cujo. It’s eighties horror at its best and upon release quickly found a loyal fan base on VHS. King doesn’t mess around with complications. After being bitten by a rabid bat, Cujo, beloved pet to the Camber family, turns furry killer. Lewis Teague directs this cult classic with aplomb (he later did another of our favourite King portmanteau movies, Cat's Eye). It's suspense, claustrophobia and horror rolled up, in a Saint Bernard-sized baddie. Unleash the terror!
2. Maximum Overdrive (1986)
Yes! This film is arguably best watched on VHS but in the streamer era it’s still available to rent online for the curious or nostalgic. Maximum Overdrive is directed by the King himself. Yes. Stephen King directed his own movie. And it’s a mess, but it won’t disappoint. It’s loud. Very load. It’s got a truck with a giant Green Goblin face on the cab. It also features Emilio Estevez, then on his brief ascent to Hollywood stardom. He didn’t quite make it the whole way, but we still love him. He plays Bill Robinson, a short order cook with a criminal record. He’s not a bad guy, really. And it's Stephen King, so machines come alive. And the characters are also trapped in a gas station. It’s up to Emilio, I mean Bill Robinson, to get everyone to safety. It also stars the great character actor Leon Rippy. And that’s never a bad thing. Also: Frankie Faison (all hail Frankie). Did I mention it’s called Maximum Overdrive? Yes. And trucks come to life. Self-driving trucks. It could never happen. Or could it? Did I mention King directed? Don’t expect everything to make sense. Life seldom does. Rewind, please. Exemplary eighties fare.
1. Misery (1990)
Adapted from King's 1987 novel of the same name, director Rob Reiner manages to perfectly balance the novel's dark psychological horror elements to deliver a boiler plate thriller that doesn’t disappoint. It’s a star-making turn for Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes (in a role that won her the Best Actress Oscar), whose world is turned upside down when she discovers the body of her favorite romantic novelist Paul Sheldon (an almost equally brilliant James Caan) following a car accident in a snow storm. A severely injured and grateful Sheldon awakens ‘safely’ in Wilkes home. What follows offers the very best of Stephen King's dark imagination, coupled with Reiner’s near-Hitchcockian understanding of the story. Don’t look it up, don’t read reviews. If you haven’t seen it, watch it. If you haven’t watched in 35 years. It won’t disappoint. Misery is an underappreciated masterpiece, a cockadoodie classic.
The Running Man is in cinemas now
