The writer of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s The Running Man adaptation has offered his take on the new version’s box office struggles.
According to Deadline, Paramount‘s $110 million reboot The Running Man, headlined by Top Gun: Maverick, Anyone But You, and Twisters star Glen Powell, endured an opening weekend that brought in just $28.2 million globally. Directed by Edgar Wright, The Running Man is a modern adaptation of Stephen King’s 1982 novel of the same name that comes nearly 40 years after Schwarzenegger’s iconic 1987 effort.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Steven E. de Souza, writer of the 1987 movie, responded to 2025's The Running Man’s box office stumble, saying complaints about its ending rekindle memories of similar complaints about the ending of his version.
“I read it and [felt that] on paper, they got the ending working,” de Souza insisted, having read the script of the new movie. “Even the reviews that love it say it stumbles at the end. It seems to me that this time around, something went wrong between the page and the stage again.”
Warning! Spoilers for The Running Man follow:
Both 1987's The Running Man and 2025's The The Running Man make a similar but significant change to Stephen King’s ending so that it is far less bleak.
As IGN discusses in our The Running Man ending explained article, in King’s ending, protagonist Ben Richards flies a plane straight into the Network building, which presumably kills everyone inside. 1987's The Running Man does away with this in favor of Arnold infiltrating the Network building alongside an army of rebels to kill demented showrunner Killian and secure his revenge.
In the 2025 version, Powell gets a plane scene, but Killian engineers a deepfake video showing Richards threatening to crash into the Network building. The video shows a missile taking out the plane, saving the studio audience from certain death and, it seems, killing Richards. But in reality, Richards survives, and Powell ends up doing his best Arnie impression and infiltrating the Network building for a showdown with Killian.
In THR interview, de Souza said adaptations of King’s book had to change the ending because it was so depressing.
“The book’s ending is a downer, so you need a new ending. I would say that both the '87 version and this version tweak the ending in pretty much the same way, except that in our version, we had less money, so it’s a little simpler.”
“Maybe the third version in 2045 will stick the landing.”
de Souza also agreed that The Running Man failed to appeal to women ahead of its launch, saying the pre-release marketing skewed male. “There definitely is some validity to that,” he said. “Science-fiction always skews male.”
While there’s still a chance for The Running Man to recover at the box office, it is now unlikely to make its money back during its theatrical run. The finish line, it seems, has already been crossed. IGN's The Running Man review returned a 7/10. We said: "The Running Man survives but Edgar Wright and Glen Powell get caught between the bleak sci-fi of Stephen King’s novel and the campy satire of the Arnold Schwarzenegger version."
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
source https://www.ign.com/articles/maybe-the-third-version-in-2045-will-stick-the-landing-writer-of-arnold-schwarzeneggers-the-running-man-responds-to-glen-powells-box-office-flop