The Running Man (1987)
Between 1977 and 1985, Stephen King published five novels as “Richard Bachman”. Four were reworked from manuscripts he’d written in high school and college during the 1960s and found languishing in a trunk that he felt should be published. When King’s publisher, concerned about oversaturating the market, limited him to two books annually, he published them elsewhere under a pseudonym.
Though associates from King’s youth protected his secret, suspicions emerged due to Bachman’s dedication to King’s teachers, as well as certain libraries cataloging Bachman’s works in King’s name. King went public after notification from a bookstore employee had concrete proof he was Bachman that he was going to divulge to the media. Public demand for Bachman’s out-of-print novels skyrocketed until repackaged into a 1985 omnibus called “The Bachman Books” which included an introduction explaining his pseudonym.
Despite low popularity, two Bachman books were optioned to make into movies before King’s admission: 1979’s “The Long Walk” and 1982’s “The Running Man”. The plot of “The Running Man” involves a nationally televised American game show in the dystopian year of 2025 where professional hit men hunt a contestant, known as “The Running Man”. Every hour the Running Man remains in the game, he receives $100. If he survives 30 days, he receives a billion. Viewers are offered cash and notoriety for reporting his whereabouts. Unbeknownst to everyone, the game is rigged and no one has survived a week.
The protagonist is Ben Richards, a brash, vulgar, and jobless social misfit in the competition to pay for his ailing daughter’s medical treatment. Desperate, Richards breaks the game’s rules and becomes an audience favorite, while ratings soar. Richards meets a social activist conman named Bradley, who plans to raise public consciousness about the rigged game by helping Richards win.
Rights for “The Running Man” were acquired by lightweight wheelchair manufacturer George Linder after buying the novel in an airport bookstore to read during a layover and determining it would make an exciting movie, like a futuristic take on Spartacus. The asking price seemed high given its unknown author but Linder worked to secure the option for $20,000 and an additional $100,000 if it went into production.
Linder wrote a story treatment, then enlisted help from two friends, Christopher Cosby and Mel Friedman. Together, they worked on a screenplay on weekends over nine months. Being his first foray into films, he found shopping the script around Hollywood challenging due to dealing with many agents, studio execs, distributors, and financiers. When word got out that Bachman was King, he compared the experience to finding a Rembrandt at K-Mart. Studios came contacting him, and in mid-1985, Linder signed with producers Rob Cohen and Keith Barish of Taft/Barish Productions, who’d landed a ten-picture deal with TriMark and eagerly took on”The Running Man”, viewing it as a blend of Metropolis, The Most Dangerous Game, and the Italian flick, The Tenth Victim (based on the Robert Sheckley short story, “Seventh Victim”), expecting they could capitalize by using King’s name in the advertising. Linder stayed involved as a line producer as part of the deal while Cosby and Friedman continued to script the Jean-Claude Van Damme flick, Bloodsport.
Taft/Barish hired several professional screenwriters to fix the amateurish bleakness of Linder’s screenplay, who had essentially just transcribed the book. Nothing seemed satisfactory until Steven E. De Souza, who came at the recommendation of Cohen’s friend, Joel Silver. De Souza determined to make totalitarianism entertaining, rather than dour and depressing like the novel, injected the Spartacus premise into a broad, populist endeavor. De Souza quipped that King’s book should have been called “The Hiding Man” because the character mostly avoided confrontations. King’s idea of a gameshow and its bleak, moody tone seemed more a product of when it was written in the 1960s than the glitzy, cheery consumerism of the 1980s. De Souza suggested a futuristic show more outrageous than anything currently on TV. He emphasized a livelier tone, hints of romance, and a happy ending. De Souza signed a two-picture contract with Taft/Barish and received the green light to revamp the entire script except its title and premise.
Linder and co-producer John Veitch secured Canadian director George P. Cosmatos, fresh from postproduction on Rambo: First Blood Part II. Mel Gibson and Patrick Swayze passed on playing Ben Richards (Gibson passed twice, first to make The Bounty, then again for Mrs. Soffel) and before securing Christopher Reeve. Daryl Hannah was slated as his activist love interest. After filming on Vancouver Island proved too expensive, they opted for Alberta, Canada, where Cosmatos had spotted the West Edmonton Mall while promoting Rambo II, and felt it could represent a domed city where wealthy citizens resided, while peasants like Ben Richards lived outside.
When production costs escalated, the creative differences between the producers grew to an impasse. Cosmatos, whose Rambo II was dominating the box office, attempted to leverage his success to insist on more elaborate effects and a Blade Runner-esque production design while amplifying death and destruction sequences that had Richards fighting enemies like Rambo on a river raft. Cosmatos also wanted to shift the story toward a somber allegorical direction.
Cohen, who’d just read Steven Bach’s memoir on the Heaven’s Gate debacle, “Final Cut”, worried that The Running Man might suffer a similar fate. Pushed back on costly demands, the producers pressed Cosmatos to abandon his Canadian shopping mall for California locations within driving distance. Growing increasingly belligerent and uncooperative, Cosmatos touted he was in too high demand at all the major studios to delay further, especially as he’d already committed to another film directly following the scheduled shoot of The Running Man. Reeve backed up Cosmatos in his pressure campaign despite acknowledging his uncertainty about his abilities. They rationalized that, despite Rambo II‘s financial success, Cosmatos wasn’t a talented visionary to entrust final-cut rights over their established concepts. Despite spending $700,000 in pre-production, they fired Cosmatos to begin anew. Reeve and co-producer Veitch left along with him.
The producers pressed to secure Linder’s suggestion of Arnold Schwarzenegger as their star. De Souza had a rapport with Schwarzenegger from Commando and approached him with his Running Man script while he was filming Raw Deal. Schwarzenegger was already aware of it. He remembered reading the Bachman book thinking it was perfect for him because he favored stories where one man went against the odds to take down a corrupt system. However, he didn’t pursue it when he’d heard it was being made into a movie because it was already in development with Reeve as the star. Schwarzenegger met with the producers, accepting a $3 million salary with director/screenplay approval rights after completing Predator.
Even though Schwarzenegger was amenable to the book’s ending where Richards sacrifices himself by crashing an airplane into the TV Games Building, he acknowledged that De Souza’s pure entertainment agenda that removed the ailing daughter, and hero’s death avoided bad word of mouth from audiences walking out of the theater feeling depressed. Meanwhile, De Souza began tailoring the script to Schwarzenegger. Reeve was a serious stage actor capable of expression through verbose philosophical musings. Schwarzenegger expressed himself through action, speaking only when necessary, except for trademark comic relief quips.
De Souza believed in the adage that every good story has a good villain. The book had lots of rules but not antagonists to jeer. Schwarzenegger was a larger-than-life presence who needed equally formidable villains to battle. De Souza combined two of the novel’s characters, the jerkwad Games Authority Head Dan Killian and standard TV host Bobby Thompson into one detestable character, Damon Killian. Cohen’s sister, casting director Jackie Burch, suggested game show host and veteran actor Richard Dawson for Killian. Dawson exuded the charisma, insincerity, and theatricality necessary. Barish concurred; he envisioned Dawson when he read the script. However, Dawson wasn’t a physical match to fight with Schwarzenegger, so the generic rifle-toting Hunters were replaced by colorful “Stalkers” with unique costumes and weapons, bulky physiques, pro wrestler braggadocio, and rabid TV fanbases.
Because moviegoers likely wouldn’t buy someone with Arnold’s physique and confidence as an unemployable everyman loser needing money, and because volunteering to be on the game show without being desperate wouldn’t make sense, contestant participation had to be involuntary. The game show’s destitute contestants became condemned criminals, who, as in the ancient Roman games, fought to the death to keep the populace distracted. But Richards, to retain hero status, must have been framed, a peace officer who defied corrupt orders to attack peaceful food protestors but became the scapegoat when others proceeded against his protestation.
The setting changed to Los Angeles because it’s where most network TV originates, and it’s a future-forward, melting-pot city. They emphasized a racially mixed cast, envisioning a future with more diversity and a divide between the rich and poor.
Set in the post-world financial demise of the year 2019, law enforcement officer Ben Richards gets framed for the murder of innocent food protestors in Bakersfield. Richards and two prison mates are captured following a jailbreak, scapegoated into becoming involuntary contestants on TV’s most popular show, the government-supported ‘The Running Man’, where criminals battle for survival while being hunted by a rogues gallery of assassins. The show’s charismatic but cutthroat host, Damon Killian, buries the truth while Richards stays alive far longer than any previous contestant, becoming popular with the ravenous viewing audience.
Once Schwarzenegger approved De Souza’s script, TriMark advanced $9 million for distribution rights, increasing the budget to $17 million. Production would start either in April ot September of 1986, pending the availability of a major director. Failing that, they opted for someone who would shoot quickly and economically. After Repo Man director Alex Cox had schedule conflicts with another film, Walker, they next attached German director Carl Schenkel based on the strength of his low-budget 1984 sci-fi flick, Abwarts. They parted with Schenkel a month later because of his seeming disdain for Hollywood productions, preferring to keep things low-key, weird, and depressing, in what the producers called George Orwell’s “1984” in the hands of David Lynch.
Next, Ferdinand Fairfax was attached and next and Cohen associate Tim Zinneman assisted Linder with line production. During storyboarding, Fairfax was fired for steering away from mass appeal toward an alienating, scathing political commentary on American excess bastardizing the world. He wanted the entire movie to be “The Running Man” game show broadcast, but a game show with a decidedly British sensibility that didn’t work for the American producers.
Unlike the uncinematic, month-long, pre-taped 1950s-style show from the Bachman book, they wanted a modernized game show that everyone would naturally want to watch. New Japanese torture game shows like “Endurance” and “Ultraquiz”) were models, ones where contestants endured pain and humiliation for money. Rather than a shopping mall, they decided that a dilapidated area of town would be closed off and set up with remote cameras recording the action. The show was promoted on punishment but its secret mission was to keep the populace glued to the screen, pacifying their discontent with lots of glitz, hype, and violent confrontations.
The effects budget was limited; shots of the city were done using matte paintings. The game show set occupied two soundstages and opened them together to form one huge set.
Schwarzenegger pushed them to secure Andrew Davis, admiring his ability to draw a good performance from Chuck Norris in Code of Silence. Davis brought in David Newman to detangle the wayward script ideas under Cosmatos and Fairfax, then De Souza completed the tenth revision. Schwarzenegger had a solid rapport with Davis but the producers grew increasingly disenchanted. After spending nine days filming the prison break that was only scheduled as a three-day shoot, Davis began further falling behind schedule and over budget with the next sequence at the ice rink. The producers surmised the issue was Davis’s indecisiveness, persistently changing directions in every way except forward. He waffled on everything from locations to costumes. What decisions Davis did make were wrongheaded. At the ice rink, Davis wanted Richards to pocket an exploding hockey puck, thinking he could use it in the climax against his enemies in a move that saved himself, but sacrificed the lives of others. The producers nixed this idea, feeling this would make him look like a major jerk, but he decided to film the pocketing anyway.
With the budget at a rate going over $8 million, the producers took advantage of an upcoming lull in the schedule to make an executive decision. Barish called around to see who was available immediately. Michael Mann recommended Paul Michael Glaser, best known as Starsky from the 1970s TV show, “Starsky and Hutch”. Glaser directed Band of the Hand for Mann after impressing him by directing some early “Miami Vice” episodes. While that film didn’t fare well in the United States, it was a hit in Germany and Japan. As The Running Man included German and Japanese investors, was deemed desirable. Coincidentally Cohen, who also directed episodes of “Miami Vice”, had previously consulted Glaser as a possibility for “The Running Man” but Glaser turned it down because he felt that there wasn’t enough prep time. They told Glaser’s agent to hold off on other jobs because they had him in mind for something big. Glaser accepted the gig this time. The film was already prepped, and he’d be a hero if it was successful. And if it weren’t, others would shoulder the blame.
While Schwarzenegger was in Columbus, Ohio for several days promoting a bodybuilding championship, they fired Davis. Upon returning, Schwarzenegger was very angry, accusing them of staging a coup so they could direct the film themselves. Cohen sat Schwarzenegger down to screen Glaser’s “Miami Vice” episode, “Smuggler’s Blues” to gain his approval, which he begrudgingly gave.
Glaser joined on two days’ notice, aiming to complete the film before Schwarzenegger left to do publicity for Predator. He reactively problem-solved as he came to each scene without an overall blueprint, shooting whatever the producers wanted him to shoot, simply and inexpensively. He found the story concept bizarre like a commercial version of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil meets 1976’s Network. He advised the crew not to give him more details than he needed to make decisions. Meanwhile, he tried to connect with Schwarzenegger to draw out more humanity and warmth from his performance than prior directors who’d concentrated more on his physicality. Schwarzenegger wanted humor in every scene but Glaser urged restraint to avoid the film’s tension unraveling and to be more personable.
Shooting mainly took place at the mostly abandoned Kaiser Steel mill in Fontana, California, and surrounding 1500 acres of property for the prison break sequence that begins the film as well as the game zone. But eight weeks were spent there, shooting at night six times a week. The demolished mill still was polluted; crew members would spontaneously get nosebleeds and headaches from the toxic environment. There were more exploding heads shot for the prison break, but they were removed to avoid an NC17 rating. Other Southern California locations were used beyond additional studio work. The steel mill shoot received visits from the authorities because their explosions proved so loud that people complained from miles away.
Schwarzenegger befriended co-star Jesse Ventura during Predator and asked him to play Captain Freedom. Paula Abdul choreographed the Lakerettes dancing on the TV show. Primary colors were emphasized to denote its comic book appeal.
There was an incident with the scene involving Buzzsaw when the chain came off and injured several technicians. Buzzsaw was originally supposed to carry two small chainsaws but Glaser felt one large one was more menacing. Dynamo is shown as spared by Richards, to a chorus of boos from the bloodthirsty audience, but he was supposed to accidentally kill himself when he pees in fright in his electrical suit after Richards corners him. He was shown getting killed later in an altercation with Ben Richards’ new friend Amber Mendez where the ceiling sprinklers go off.
Originally slated for a Memorial Day, then a July 1987 release because TriMark sensed a major hit after seeing the dailies, pursuing a summer release but it was pushed to November because Schwarzenegger’s contract specified it couldn’t be in theaters at the same time as Predator, taking over the intended slot for the long-delayed Rambo III. Ironically, despite firing more seasoned directors to potentially increase the budget, under Glaser, the film came in nearly $17 million over its original $10 million budget.
The film experienced post-production difficulties, especially in the editing room because of its constant revisions and improvisations. Glaser’s cut ran at a lumbering 140 minutes. Disagreements among principal factions erupted on what the film should be. De Souza was brought in as a consultant to maintain a clear narrative. Most cuts came from Dawson’s performance because he had ad-libbed so much as he went along that his part was greatly expanded from his original intent, and his charisma was so overpowering that he diminished Schwarzenegger. Richards looked weak as he stood around like a schmuck while Killian ran the show. There were also heated arguments about the ending. Some wanted an ending faithful to King’s novel while others preferred a happy, romantic, and less expensive ending. They previewed it with a final shot showing Ben kissing Amber; it received high scores so they ran with it.
They chose Harold Faltemeyer for the score because they wanted a techno sound. Effects work was provided by Larry Cavanaugh and his crew, known for Apocalypse Now.
Test screenings revealed some audience plot confusion that resulted in reshoots, especially what happens in the helicopter. Further preview audiences seemed enthusiastic about the finished product, especially among the 14-40-year-old demographic. It also scored surprisingly well among women compared to Schwarzenegger’s prior films. When women were asked what they liked most about Schwarzenegger, many responded with his cute backside, to which Schwarzenegger said he now knew what to showcase more of in his next picture. It was the #1 film in America for the first month of its release, earning $38 million domestically and $70 million worldwide.
The Running Man is a broad satire on television trends, primarily in how the government and corporations use media to keep the populace living in states of oppression. The main target is mindless, escapist popular fares like professional wrestling and game shows, and is quite prescient in predicting the coming of reality show programming which became pervasive a decade later. It’s a basic formula of survival, following The Most Dangerous Game‘s and Rollerball’s premise if given a WWE treatment, similar to how video games pit the player up against progressively more difficult and colorful bosses to fight with a variety of cool weaponry.
Arnold occasionally exhibits stiff acting during dialogue scenes, especially during the opening helicopter scene reshoot. Dawson’s effective villainy is a highlight, oozing malice, humor, charm, and viciousness as the consummate game show host personality. It’s difficult to imagine anyone else more suited for the role. Surprisingly, it was his last big-screen performance.
Glaser displays good energy once the action begins, though he lacks any sense of style to separate it from other 1980s sci-fi fare. Though futuristic, the limited computer graphics and Faltemeyer’s score date the film firmly to the 1980s. The supporting roles are cast for looks more than anything else, with lively Maria Conchita Alonso barely memorable, and stars like Yaphet Kotto, Jim Brown, and Mick Fleetwood have little to do.
Initially, Schwarzenegger was happy that despite its production difficulties the result was a classy, compelling action flick. Over time, he grew disenchanted with Glaser’s approach. He felt that Glaser shot the film with the mindset of a TV director, ignoring the story’s deeper themes. In fairness, Glaser’s mid-production hire didn’t allow time to ruminate about underlying themes regarding American entertainment, government media control, or the devaluation of human life. He only had time to shoot what he was told before moving on. Schwarzenegger says that a $150 million earning picture was hampered because of a director in over his head.
Stephen King says that the film’s only similarity to his book was the title and that only Richard Dawson’s performance is above standard fare, so he wouldn’t allow the “Stephen King” credit.
The Running Man is content to copy concepts but it doesn’t strive to be anything more than a blackly comic actioner built on smashing heads and kicking butts. Its appeal is mainly for Schwarzenegger fans and 1980s sci-fi that’s more a vacuous entertainment than a heady warning of future dystopia. Take it in fun, and it’s worthwhile time spent.
- Edgar Wright has discussed doing another adaptation of “The Running Man” true to King’s book.
Qwipster’s rating: B+
MPAA Rated: R for strong pervasive violence and language
Running time: 101 min.
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Richard Dawson, Maria Conchita Alonso, Jesse Ventura, Yaphet Kotto, Jim Brown, Erland Van Lidth, Gus Rethwisch, Toru Tanaka, Mick Fleetwood, Dweezil Zappa, Kurt Fuller
Director: Paul Michael Glaser
Screenplay: Steven E. de Souza