The Running Man is a 1987 American dystopian action film directed by Paul Michael Glaser and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, María Conchita Alonso, Richard Dawson, Yaphet Kotto, and Jesse Ventura.
The film is set in a dystopian United States between 2017 and 2019, featuring a television show where convicted criminal "runners" must escape death at the hands of professional killers.
A new movie adaptation of the novel directed by Edgar Wright and starring Glen Powell in the lead role is set for release by Paramount Pictures in 2025.
After his arrest, Amber sees news coverage falsely claiming Richards killed several people during the incident and begins to doubt his guilt.
Meanwhile, the ruthless and narcissistic Damon Killian, host of The Running Man, recruits Richards, hoping to boost the show's stagnant ratings.
As The Running Man begins, Killian reneges on his offer and sends Richards, Weiss, and Laughlin in rocket sleds to the game zone, an abandoned part of Los Angeles divided into four quadrants.
Weiss, meanwhile, discovers the satellite uplink controlling government broadcasts is inside the game zone and cracks the code for Amber to memorize before being killed by Dynamo.
Amber discovers the corpses of the show's past "winners," realizing their victories were state propaganda, and Richards kills the flamethrower-wielding Fireball.
The cast of The Running Man also includes Karen Leigh Hopkins as Brenda, Sven Thorsen as Sven, Edward Bunker as Lenny, Bryan Kestner as Med Tech, Anthony Penya as Valdez, Kurt Fuller as Tony, Kenneth Lerner as Agent, Dey Young as Amy, Rodger Bumpass as Phil Hillton, Dona Hardy as Mrs. McArdle, Lynne Marie Stewart as Edith Wiggins, Bill Margolin as Leon, George P. Wilbur as Lieutenant Saunders, and Thomas Rosales Jr. as Chico.
But a producer claimed the audience would be too stupid to understand what happened, and ordered the movie to be edited so everyone knew right away that it was not the real characters that died.
Being also an opera singer, wrestler and actor Erland van Lidth performs in his role as Dynamo part of the aria "Hai già vinta la causa... Vedrò mentr'io sospiro" out of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro.
[2] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four, complaining that "all the action scenes are versions of the same scenario", but praised Dawson's performance, stating that he "has at last found the role he was born to play.
"[18] Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times declared, "The Running Man is, by far, Schwarzenegger's best vehicle since The Terminator—not such high praise if you recall what came in between—and it suggests that his Frank Frazetta frame shows best in these fantasy sci-fi settings ... For the right audience, it'll be fun.
"[19] Rita Kempley of The Washington Post called the film "a fast-paced, futuristic purée of Beat the Clock, Max Headroom, professional wrestling and The Most Dangerous Game.
Pumped and primed for self-parody, the burly star proves as funny as he is ferocious in this tough guy's commentary on America's preoccupation with violence and game shows.
The site's critical consensus states, "The Running Man is winking sci-fi satire with ridiculous clothes and workmanlike direction".
[23] On the film's 30th anniversary in 2017, The Running Man was cited by a BBC journalist as having made accurate predictions about life in 2017, including an economic collapse, and offering a critique of American television culture.
De Souza said one of the producers of American Gladiators sold his show with clips from The Running Man, telling the network "We're doing exactly this, except the murdering part".
[38] On October 25th Michael Cera (who'd previously collaborated with Wright and Bacall on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) and Emilia Jones joined the cast.