The Running Man is just a regular guy

0:00From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, it's the treatment.

0:15It's the treatment time. Elvis Mitchell. Welcome. It's good to welcome back an old friend who's been away from this country and this show for way too long. Our old friend Edgar Wright, who has a new adaptation of a film from a book by Richard Bachman, nay, Stephen King. I guess it's set in the year 2025. Yes. First of all, the film is The Running Man. It's a pleasure to have you here. But when does the book take place? It's nice to be back. It's lovely to be back. Do you know what the jacket, the original 1982 edition of The Running Man when it was under Stephen King Sudden and Richard Backman, do you know what the log line of the book said in 1982?

0:57Welcome to the year 2025 where the best men don't run for president, they run for their lives. Which reminds me of this book that clearly had a big influence on Stephen King, which is I Am Legend. Not the movie, but the book, which is really about living in this world where you can't trust anybody. You are forced to trust your instincts and your instincts only. At that point where you're so tired, you can barely tell what instincts to trust. Yeah. That really is a big part of this movie. I think Stephen King I had started reading in my early teens and I think he was definitely I mean it's obviously a writer I still enjoy to this day but he definitely I think probably for a lot of people if you're like a gateway author to to reading adult books and the thing about Stephen King books um was you know I was a horror fan so I'm kind of interested in reading horror books and of course when you're reading a Stephen King book the horror is not necessarily the thing it's actually about kind of like society and life and a lot of like adult material i mean when i say adult i mean grown up and i remember that being a real eye opener for me reading his books i mean i love a lot of the film adaptations but like the sort of books in in terms of the detail and a sort of specificity about them and also kind of a relatability about them and how grounded they are and that was something that really stuck with me and probably had an influence on sean to be honest sean of the dead really well just in terms of i think that they really like nail down in a way that maybe the 50s versions of those movies did not they're really grounded and there's so much he was really the first to sort of do that on a regular basis to set these books in the real world yes the joy of those books is that you the joy of the gearing up before the kind of the the genre element hits now weirdly enough though the Richard Backman books are a bit different.

2:51And in fact, The Running Man, I think, is one of his most intense books, because you're really thrown into the situation in the first scene. And I read the Backman books when they were brought out in that compendium where there was the four of them, like Rage, Roadwork, The Long Walk, and Running Man. And maybe in the mid-80s, there was a paperback edition in the UK, and I had read those. And I had read The Running Man before I saw the 1987 film. So it was also, probably I must have read The Running Man when I was like 14, 15. I definitely read it before I saw the movie because I remember it was probably the first time I saw a movie and thought like, huh, they didn't adapt the book at all.

3:31Like, not in a bad way. I mean, I think that film is super entertaining, but it's a different thing. It's a very different beast. By the way, I'll ask you to explain to the audience what the movie's about because we should, we're talking like around the book. Well, this is the thing is what, So Ben Richards is out of work. He works in construction in this kind of like near future of 2025. There is like the network and not just like a media company. They own everything. Like they own the cops. They own everything. You barely in the movie, you barely hear about the government at all. I think there's one brief mention of the president and that's kind of about it.

4:12Like the only thing you really hear about is this like all consuming like corporation, the network. And he's been blacklisted from all of their companies. So Ben Richards is somebody that has been basically kind of penalized for being like a stand up guy. Like Josh Brolin has a line in the film who plays Killian, the sort of the creator of The Running Man. He says, you stuck your neck out one too many times for others and got your head chopped off. And that's basically his fatal flaw is that he has a righteous anger about bullies. He tells people where to go and he's been punished for it. And now he can't work.

4:50Which makes him a more active character than I think the Ben Richards in the book. Who is somebody to whom things happen rather than being active. I mean, I think we like the idea of him in this kind of like sort of near future of 2025. It's right around the corner. You're penalized for doing the right thing. he's obviously very like frustrated because like you know he can't not tell people where to go it's both the strength but it's also in this in this kind of environment it's his failing because he can't get ahead and it would be a lot easier for him in this kind of cruel world if he just kind of like joined the herd and shut up and just got on with it but he can't do that and so it's made him you know made him an outcast he's blacklisted he can't work and you know him and his wife have a sick kid and you know she's already no health insurance no health insurance nothing and like they're sort of struggling to get money for flu meds and she's already working like double shifts at like sort of like a terrible club we have this idea in the movie we don't really say it out loud that it's like state tv in the sense of every home has a 65-inch plasma.

6:01It's like they have these mandated TVs that only show the network. And there are a number of cruel game shows. This is straight from the book where one can win money. They're all dangerous and some of them are deadly. And the deadliest of them is the running man. And Ben Richards sort of has a plan to make some money, but his plan is to get on one of the other shows. He thinks he can go to the network building, get on one of these other shows. I said, I could do that game on the treadmill and get like a thousand bucks job done but obviously it doesn't work out like that by the way we should say we're talking about the year 2025 it's just around the corner it's the treatment it's about to finish we just snuck over the line in the last six weeks so we finally get the version of the running man we've been wanting to see it's go writer and his director is our old friend edgar right it's the treatment there's such a sense of despair in this but also there's such a sense of of oppression that it's almost like the society has sort of become this pressure to create this diamond that can exist on this tv show yeah that to me is how conspiratorial it feels in a way that really sort of sent a chill through me and i like that aspect of it and then trailer voice they get more than they bargained for with ben richards but speaking of trailer and we're just talking about some of the great visual texture and i sort of laughed out loud and the locker room with everybody's being introduced and i noticed some of the names above the lockers and those names are.

7:26Obviously, Stephen King has such an amazing universe in the books and the film adaptations. And there's a locker room where you see the games are denoted by their sort of color coding. And so the deep scarlet red ones is the running man, like sort of done in the style of like the most dangerous, like prisoners, like convict outfits, basically. But you see the other games and there's like different colors for the different games. And then above we had them with their surname. So I kind of thought, well, let's do all actors that have been in Stephen King films. So you see, and it's pretty brief shot, but you could see like Cat, Spacek, Travolta, Walken.

8:03Cat and Spacek are right next to each other. Stanton. Yes. I laughed out loud when I saw him. You said there's also the jumpsuits to it. Well, yes. One of them is King because Stephen King has obviously been in some of his own films, most notably, I think, in Creepshow where he plays like a big part in that. and so i got to you know obviously you know i've been working with steven on this not in person a lot of the time mostly by email and i actually didn't speak to him on the phone until after he saw the movie and then i was when i was in new york for comic-con i said i'd really like to meet you before the film comes out i'd love to meet you and so me and my girlfriend flew to maine to meet steven and we thought we brought some gifts and the two things we brought one of them is a bit of a spoiler, so I won't say what that is.

8:50But the other one is that we brought the jumpsuit, the King jumpsuit. It's lime green, and it has King on it, and the game is Bug Out, which you can only imagine how awful that game show is going to be and how mean it is. So we gave him a lime green jumpsuit that said King. He was very happy with that. He got the King jumpsuit. He got the King jumpsuit. No better person to have than Stephen King, whose book, The Running Man, is the newest film from our old friend, Edgar Wright, who's been away for way too long. That's Amalfo. It's a treatment. There's more to come. Stay with us.

9:32He said he was good, but he's having water anyway. My guest is our old friend. It's coffee. It's coffee. I'm jet lagged. Let's beat you up here. His newest film as director and writer is his adaptation. Co-writer. Michael McCall. Shout out to Michael McCall. I'm sorry. That's right. I said the first half co-writer. of the running man. It's the treatment. I have to tell you, there's so many moments that could be king moments. I was just following myself thinking of in Hot Fuzz, the moment where he's going, where he's jogging through town and everybody knows him and he's completely unnerved by it because it's this thing that really sort of makes the town seem both normal and very strange.

10:03Yeah. And that sort of thing that there's always something happening to a king character to ratchet up their paranoia. And often that's the most normal thing. And this, having everybody saying hi to him and he's stopping and he's actually making him more upset that he can't finish his run yeah that that felt to me like it could be something out of a stephen king novel you know what i mean what's fun about the and this is straight from the book but in the film is like i guess there's an anxiety intention to scenes where nothing is happening you know there's like sort of moments that that he's kind of spinning out because what he imagines is about to happen and also that sense of paranoia is sort of exacerbated by the fact that everybody's being seen all the time.

10:46Yeah. You know, so even when he goes, there's as much claustrophobia, in fact, less freedom in him being outside than with him being in the... I mean, I just... But that opening stuff before the opening credit sequence felt very Stephen King-like to me. And it's interesting because there's so much of that book specifically, but also that period of books, that and Long Walk, that had been subsumed into popular culture. There's no RoboCop without The Running Man. There's no Hunger Games without The Running Man. And there's so much of what that book has done in terms of like sort of media satire and also our hunger to be famous.

11:20Then turning the world into spectators, the entire world into spectators watching TV and making the world pass. There's so much of what that book has done that has been, you know, one doesn't want to say stolen, but certainly been subsumed in the culture. Well, it's interesting, like Robocop came out in the same year as the, you know, the Arnold Schwarzenegger, Paul Michael Glazer movie. and Robocop seems to sort of have more in common with the tone of the book. I mean, and also 2000 AD as well, like sort of Judge Dredd, I think, was also like probably a big influence on Robocop as well. And also it's interesting.

11:53Sometimes I've had journalists say to me about, oh, the book is very dark. You're a director that sort of has a lighter side to it. How do you kind of like balance those things? And I said, well, it is a dark book, but I think Stephen King is like, I think underrated as a satirist. there's a lot of funny stuff in it again and it's super dark he has a it's kind of like a mean funny streak a mile wide in that book which is why you can't think about that robocop you know so like robocop is a version that gets the satire the hunger games is a version that sort of gets that sort of intersection of desperation and ambition but until this i haven't seen anybody marry all those aspects of the stuff that's from the book you know one film i'll give a shout out to this like a lower budget film that i feel like was got some things from the book right is that one that not enough people talk about is that film called series seven the contenders yes which i saw at the cinema it's funny i was talking that's really that's really like the almost like the the hd cam version well it's funny like you know who you know who does the voiceover in that film will arnett and i actually met i was talking to the other day and i said oh you know i mentioned series seven the contenders the other day because it's like nobody really talks about that film i don't think it gets enough credit okay i remember seeing that at the time and in that way that you do when you read books is you start to make the movie in your head and like so there's an element where the running man is like just things about it are very vivid to me and have remained vivid to me since i read it and so then you know we hadn't even started filming this time last year i heard that you had you guys were working you went to to cinema con you still just you just finished the movie yeah i i came straight from i came straight from the set to las vegas and it was just wild to which that was earlier this year so you finished shooting oh yeah we finished shooting end of march and uh and you know you've seen the movie it it's not like it's uh it's not uncomplicated but i mean listen i'll say this is that it sounds like kind of i would never ever i'm never ever complaining i'm extremely grateful to be working and especially with the industry as it is is like just like to to be having done this is just like a dream but you it's also it is it is the product of like six and seven day weeks for like a year straight you know but listen i mean it was sort of as exhausting as being on the game itself i feel like making the movie it started to mirror like the it felt like you were on the show at a certain point because you're like having to move locations every day and like i think there's something about the the speed and some of the arduous conditions of like the cold and stuff that it does it does factor into the movie you know in a good way and i think for glenn as well i think he kind of like sort of it helped him it's like we were shooting that film bulgarian february is pretty cold but nothing is colder than glasgow in november glasgow by the river by the cline bank there's like two in fact we were doing the dvd commentary today and we were discussing all three of us which was the coldest day and it was like i think this casino scene was the exterior of the casino is the coldest night shoot i've ever been on or maybe it's that scene outside molly's that might be the coldest location i've ever been on you can see you can see the breath on like glenn it looks like he's on the you know like in the digital breath from titanic but for real you know it's the truth my guess who we're also glad is working is edgar right his new film is director and co-writer see i can get this right sometime this is adaptation of the running man i guess i find myself thinking too just about how much your films and this fits into this too your films are about by the the second act your lead character is always exhausted it's something that runs through everything you've ever done this character doesn't know which way to look i mean it's this thing that i can't think of anybody else who's done that as often as you where they've been so set upon and we realize they haven't slept but i wonder where that comes from for you because it's it's so recurrent in your work well it's funny i think sometimes you make movies for other people to tell you what what they're about i think so sometimes i mean i think sometimes like people talk to you about themes in films and you haven't necessarily put it together yourself like there are like there are themes that go through all the three films i did with simon but it's not like we ever sat down i mean i remember like simon saying it once about oh it's a trilogy of like the individual versus the collective and i think oh that's good you never said that out loud when we were writing but maybe we just did it you know and sometimes it's that funny thing i found this with last night in soho is like sometimes somebody writes something in a review and usually i think some directors probably never want to admit to it that somebody else articulates the film better than you ever could and that's always kind of like a great thing sometimes if somebody says something about something i think and huh that's what it's about like so i don't if there is a theme in my movies i don't know why that is i mean i guess the thing that i like and maybe this goes between well what would be the things like sean for sure uh the world's end to some extent last night in soho is kind of almost like an insomniac horror film they all are tell me the one that is not where somebody hasn't been on his feet for much i guess baby driver baby's kind of on his heals the whole time a lot i mean certainly in the second act he is yeah you're right i mean yeah i can almost tell you i put on a clock and tell you when it is because that's the moment we really feel the most empathy for and sympathy for the character well i think something about ben richards and this is in the book and this is something i really wanted to bring to the screen is that he is hopefully like more relatable as an everyman than a lot of contemporary action cinema because a lot of like films in this day and age and genre are about people who are already really capable like john wick is the best kind of like hitman you know jason bourne is an amnesiac but he was the best assassin and superheroes are superheroes and so people are usually like the best at what they do ben richards is just a guy off the street that's one of the things about the novel that's so exciting is like he literally walks in off the street and he ends up on the worst show and what What is he going to do?

18:03Hopefully the feeling as you watch it is like, nobody has survived this game. How is this guy going to win? But also what's great, what's so much fun about the film too, that's really, I think, sort of key to the book is that the book is full of characters. And you've done that too. And that's also something that we turn to you for. I mean, I just, you almost announce characters by what the colors they're wearing in the same way that they would be if they were contestants, don't you? Yeah. No, I mean, that's been something about costume and design that are always color coding. I think it was something back when I did the TV show Space before Shaun the Dead.

18:37A friend of mine said to me about the show, and it really stuck with me. He said, I love the costumes of the characters. You could draw them from memory afterwards. And I was like, it really stuck with me. I'm like, huh, that's so interesting. And I think right from doing Shaun, where Shaun is in like white shirt, red tie. And then so he's the same thing in a lot of hot fuzzers. He's in the blue. Well, also, we give him colors. Like the baddies have a color and then all the police are in blue. The police are in blue even when they're off duty. But there's always a thing about tracking people. And so that thing sometimes when you watch films, and I could think of some, I don't want to ding any movies, but like so when people are all in the same color, you know, like something like Alien 3, I remember watching that.

19:23And it's a tricky thing because it's a prison colony. but when they're all bald and they all have the same costume it's quite difficult to track who they are i remember watching armageddon and it's like wait there are two different space shuttles and they're all astronauts and they all have the same spacesuit on and i cannot tell who is who in the sequence whereas our good friend quentin in kill bill it's like the bride is in bright yellow and the baddies are in black and you can like track it even the thing of like in in scott pilgrim the protagonists are in bright colors and all of the extras are wearing black so the the protagonists really pop it's even that thing i used to love in jackie chan films like you know when jackie is wearing white socks why is he wearing white socks because when he if he's wearing black shoes and black trousers when he kicks you see that flash of white when it kicks somebody in the head and it's like yes if he had black socks on you wouldn't see nothing but the White Sox is like, bang, bang.

20:20So I love all that stuff. He's been away too long. Please, I'd like to see more of you in this horrific new film. Did you say horrific or terrific? You're a terrific new film. I genuinely thought you said horrific there. I mean, it's a horrific situation. I'm sorry. His terrific new film about a horrific situation is... Oh, I like that. Thank you. Can we use that as a pull quote? Please be my guest. Edgar Wright, who's been away for way too long. This is way too much fun. Make another movie, Spendill. Come back and do the show. You're always welcome here. Listen, and listeners, I'll take horrific.

21:05Writer-director Edgar Wright has gone from the dystopian present to the dystopian future with his new film, his adaptation of Stephen King's The Running Man. It stars Glenn Powell and is now in theaters. Past conversations with our old friend Edgar at the archive. KCRW.com slash the treatment. There's a new treat in your future. They drop every week wherever you get your podcasts. The latest treat is from NFL pro baller turned actor Nnamdi Asunga. It's an epic miniseries that got him through his time on the injured list. The show is produced and edited by Rebecca Mooney and mixed by Katie Gilchrist To better days, everyone I'm Elvis Mitchell This is The Tree Fact