The Running Man is a dystopian thriller novel by American writer Stephen King, first published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1982 as a paperback original.

The story follows protagonist Ben Richards as he participates in the reality show The Running Man, in which contestants win money by evading a team of hitmen sent to kill them.

After rigorous physical and mental testing, Richards is selected to appear on The Running Man, the Network's most popular, lucrative, and dangerous program.

The contestant is declared an enemy of the state and released with a 12-hour head start before the Hunters, an elite team of Network-employed hitmen, are sent out to kill him.

The contestant earns $100 per hour for staying alive and avoiding capture, an additional $100 for each law enforcement officer or Hunter he kills, and a grand prize of $1 billion if he survives for 30 days.

If he neglects to send the messages, he will be held in default of his Games contract and stop accumulating prize money but will continue to be hunted indefinitely.

He sneaks away through a sewer pipe and emerges in the city's impoverished ghetto, where he takes shelter with gang member Bradley Throckmorton and his family.

As the police and the Hunters close in on the safe house, Richards is wounded but manages to escape and spends the night sleeping at an abandoned construction site.

The police confront Richards, but he bluffs his way onto a plane past both them and the lead Hunter, Evan McCone, by pretending to be carrying an explosive charge powerful enough to destroy the entire facility.

Richards takes McCone and Amelia as hostages and has the plane fly low over populated areas to avoid being shot down by a surface-to-air missile.

Richards allows Amelia to jump off the plane with a parachute and then uses the last of his strength to override the autopilot and fly toward the skyscraper, serving as the headquarters of the Games Network.

In February 2021, it was announced that a new film adaptation of the novel was in development at Paramount Pictures, with Edgar Wright set to direct from a screenplay by Michael Bacall.

[8] In October 2024, Katy O'Brian, Daniel Ezra, Karl Glusman, Josh Brolin, Lee Pace, Jayme Lawson, Michael Cera, Emilia Jones and William H. Macy joined the cast.