Director Edgar Wright is looking at his second box office bomb in a row, while Glen Powell will have to wait a little while longer to be anointed as a bona fide star. Their new film, The Running Man, is unlikely to hit the $100 million mark at the global box office, despite costing a reported $110 million to produce. The movie received moderately positive reviews, but it wasn’t enough to pull crowds to theaters. As far as adaptations of Stephen King‘s novels are concerned — The Running Man is based on one of his earliest books, written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman — it was barely able to overtake The Long Walk, which was released only some months prior. Also based on a novel written under the Bachman pseudonym, The Long Walk shares strikingly similar themes to The Running Man, but it cost only around $20 million.
For context, one of the biggest flops based on a King novel, The Dark Tower, was able to gross around twice as much as The Running Man has until now. Directed by Nikolaj Arcel, The Dark Tower survived a tumultuous production and concluded its run with around $115 million at the global box office, against a reported budget of around $65 million. The movie featured Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey in the lead roles and would likely have spawned several sequels had it been well-received. It was, after all, based on King’s magnum opus fantasy series. The Dark Tower was criticized for altering the source material and currently sits at a terrible 16% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes.
Glen Powell Has a Major New Movie Lined Up
The Running Man, on the other hand, currently holds a 64% score on Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics’ consensus reads, “Spiritedly sprinting through grim source material, Edgar Wright’s The Running Man doesn’t live up to the director’s high bar for inventive action extravaganzas but maintains a slick stride.” Wright last directed the horror film Last Night at Soho, which underperformed with just $23 million globally against a reported budget of nearly $45 million. Last year, Powell featured in Twisters, which did reasonably well at the box office; the year before that, he starred in the hit romantic comedy Anyone But You, alongside Sydney Sweeney. He will next star in the A24 black comedy How to Make a Killing, and then in J.J. Abrams‘ mysterious new film. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
Release Date
November 14, 2025
Director
Edgar Wright
Producers
George Linder, Nira Park, Simon Kinberg
