Running Man star Glen Powell got told last-minute he needed Stephen King's nod after taking the role

Glen Powell as Ben Richards in The Running Man stood in front of two guards — (Image credit: Paramount)

Someone once said, "If you come at the King, you best not miss." According to the new Running Man, Glen Powell, though, he didn't even know he was shooting his shot. While attending New York Comic Con this weekend with director Edgar Wright, the former Top Gun: Maverick and Twisters star revealed that he was told he couldn't step off the starting line just yet until Stephen King, the author of the original book the movie was adapting, gave the go-ahead. Thankfully, it took one of Powell's best films to date to seal the deal.

“The only interaction I had is when Edgar offered me this movie, and I was like, ‘yes.’ He’s like, ‘You’re my Ben Richards,’ And I’m like, ‘Let’s go,'" explained Powell to the crowd (via The Hollywood Reporter). "Later that night, you’re like, ‘By the way, you have to be approved by Stephen King,’” Powell recalled, referencing the very last minute chat he'd had with his potential director. “He’s like, 'he’s gonna watch Hitman tonight,' so I had to wait overnight for Stephen King to watch Hitman and hope that I still had the role in the morning.”

From there, the race was on to bring King's story (which was previously under his pen name of Richard Bachman) to life. Set in a not-too-distant but incredibly bleak future, The Running Man sees Powell as Ben Richards, a family man who signs up for America's number one game show, which forces him to go on the run, hunted by trained killers for sport. If he survives the ordeal, he'll win a massive wad of cash that will get his family out of the slums, and more importantly, save his sick daughter in the process.

By this point, though, stress levels had already dipped for Wright, whose mind was just recovering from being blown away by the fact that he was adapting the work of one of the most influential authors in history. “I was with Michael Bacall, who wrote the film with me, and I was like, ‘This is so nerve-racking to have to hand in our homework to Stephen King.’ But he loved the screenplay, and so it was great. It was a real kismet.” The last bit of approval came in a wonderful note he received in an email from King, who deemed the script, "'more faithful to the book to keep the fans happy enough to keep me on my toes and excited.’ And I was thinking, ‘OK, I’ll take that.'"