The Running Man with Edgar Wright and Michael Bacall

Dec 9, 2025

Join Edgar Wright, the visionary director behind cult classics like Shaun of the Dead, and Michael Bacall, the savvy screenwriter of 21 Jump Street, as they delve into their fresh adaptation of The Running Man. They explore the eerie parallels between Stephen King's 2025 predictions and today's reality, discuss balancing entertainment with sharp social commentary, and unpack the thrilling design of their dystopian world. With insights into AI's impact on storytelling and the complexities of corporate power, this lively chat is a deep dive into imaginative filmmaking.

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ANECDOTE

Early Reading Shaped Vision

Edgar Wright first read Stephen King's The Running Man as a teenager and remembers devouring it in his bedroom from a Backman compendium.
The book's gritty, grounded details and rapid impact stuck with him and inspired lasting cinematic ideas.

INSIGHT

Sprint After Long Gestation

The project mixed long gestation with sudden, intense production once greenlit, shaping how drafts and fixes were handled.
Rapid momentum after studio backing forced concentrated rewrites and constant involvement through post-production.

INSIGHT

Book Felt More Prescient As An Adult

Rereading the novel as an adult revealed how prescient its themes felt about reality TV, wealth gaps and privatization.
That increased empathy made Ben Richards' anger land more powerfully in the adaptation.

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Today on the show – Edgar Wright is back! The Running Man is his new Stephen King adaptation, co-written with Michael Bacall, and on this week’s show, the three of us run for our lives through the reality TV dystopia of that movie, and its creation.

The film is a new take on the 1982 novel of the same name, and imagines an America in a state of national calamity. The economy is in ruins. Violence is on the rise. Corporations rule everything. And authoritarian brutality has become primetime entertainment in the form of a gameshow in which cash-strapped contestants are hunted down and dispatched as a form of TV spectacle. The longer you survive, the more money you make for the loved ones you’ll soon be leaving behind. But of course, if you somehow manage to make it through thirty days alive, you can return to that family, one billion dollars richer.

Edgar and Michael are no strangers to the sort of kineticism inherent in a premise like that. Edgar is of course the filmmaker behind breathless popcorn classics such as Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz and 2017’s Baby Driver. Michael meanwhile is the writer behind both 21 and 22 Jump Street – two of the best action comedies in recent decades. The Running Man sees the pair – who previously worked together on the script for Scott Pilgrim Vs The World – back at maximum velocity and bringing the noise.

In the spoiler conversation you’re about to hear, Edgar and Michael tell me about the overlaps they found between the 2025 that King predicted and our own real-life version (the original novel was set in our present day). We talk about the anger that drives their protagonist in this tale, Ben Richards, played by Glen Powell. And, with A.I such an integral part of the malevolent Network and their manipulation of the public in this tale, I was also curious to ask Michael and Edgar where each of their heads are at, in terms of that technology and the slow, dangerous creep of it into our moviemaking landscape?

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