Ep 204: The Running Man

In this episode of Pop Culture Pastor, Dave and Cody sprint headfirst into Edgar Wright’s new adaptation of The Running Man, asking the big question: is this the movie that officially crowns Glen Powell as the next great everyman action star?The guys start with a wild but oddly wholesome news item: Timothée Chalamet calling Adam Sandler “one of the best actors of all time” during their “Sandler x Chalamet” event. That launches a fun conversation about Sandler’s career arc — from “guy who just makes vacation movies with his buddies” to secretly one of the most versatile actors working, thanks to turns in Punch-Drunk Love and Uncut Gems. There’s also a quick detour into DC’s Lanterns delay, James Gunn’s DCU, and why everything around Warner Bros. feels just a little… wobbly.Then it’s full-on Running Man review mode:how this version leans back into Stephen King’s original dystopian nightmarewhy Glen Powell feels like the spiritual heir to Bruce Willishow Colman Domingo and Josh Brolin absolutely cook in limited screen timewhy the Hunters are a huge missed opportunity, and how Alan Ritchson could’ve fixed the whole problem with one menacing glareplus a Deeper Themes segment on media, virtue signaling, and why the real villain might be the human heart, not just “rich bad guys in offices.”In The Lobby, listeners ask about the many faces of Cody (Contrarian Cody, Capitalist Cody, Chaotic Cody, and more), dream podcast guests (Scorsese, Paul Walter Hauser, Weird Al, Harrison Ford), and whether a live-action Legend of Zelda movie can truly be the Lord of the Rings of video game adaptations.Oh, and yes—there’s talk of Christmas playlists, Die Hard–inspired Christmas shirts, and why Michael Cera is somehow the loser of the movie simply because there wasn’t enough of him.