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Given his rather chipper and cheeky comedic back catalog, it'd feel like a very severe detour for director Edgar Wright to keep the original ending of Stephen King's dark future tale, The Running Man, in his upcoming film, given how just incredibly bleak it is. For those who don't know, the 1982 novel ends with Ben Richards (who is played by Glen Powell in the new movie) learning that his wife and daughter, whom he'd hoped to get out of the slums by entering the Running Man competition, have been killed. With nothing left to lose, he flies a plane into the Games Network that produces the deadly television show, killing himself and his oppressors in the process as an act of defiance. Woof.
For Wright, that epic but equally soul-crushing closing act was never on the cards. “Everybody knew at the outset that [the novel’s ending] wasn’t going to be part of this adaptation exactly the way,” Wright told Film Stories. It was also a route that King was fully aware wouldn't make the final cut. “He realised even before he read it that we weren’t going to be doing the ending from the book,”
Of course, daring to tweak a King classic is a risky move, but thankfully, the legendary author welcomed Wright's upcoming alteration. "And when he emailed back, he said, ‘I was very curious how you were going to tackle the ending, and I think you did a great job.’ So I was very happy with that.”
