Ep. 70 The Running Man by Richard Bachman (Stephen King) vs. The Running Man (2025)

Send us Fan MailA game show where the prize is a billion dollars and the cost is being hunted across the country sounds like fiction until you look at how close it sits to real life. I'm putting Stephen King’s The Running Man (published as Richard Bachman) head to head with the 2025 film adaptation directed by Edgar Wright and starring Glen Powell, and I'm digging into what changes when a 1982 dystopia gets filtered through a modern lens.I walk through the story’s central engine: Ben Richards has no money, no job, and a child who needs medical care, so he enters the biggest show in the country and gets a head start before elite hunters come for him. From Boston to Maine, I trace the major plot beats, the rules that keep the pressure on, and the surprising ways the audience becomes part of the hunt. Then I get into the adaptation choices that matter, including how the film uses deepfakes and censorship to show propaganda at work and to explain why certain characters decide to help or turn on Ben.Finally, I compare the two endings that couldn’t be more different, and I'm honest about what lands and what doesn’t. I talk about why the book’s finale feels more devastating, why the movie feels cleaner, and why parts of the novel made reading genuinely uncomfortable, from the way women are treated to the repeated racial slurs. Subscribe for more book versus movie breakdowns, leave a rating and review if you enjoyed it, and share your verdict: which version tells the stronger story?All episodes of the podcast can be found on our website: https://booksvsmovies.buzzsprout.com/shareConnect with me: Instagram | Threads | Bookshop | Goodreads | Blog