Edgar Wright to direct Stephen King’s ‘The Running Man’ at Paramount – Deadline

EXCLUSIVE: Paramount Pictures is making a deal with Edgar Wright to develop and direct a new adaptation of The running man, Stephen King’s futuristic novel that the author first published under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. This will not be a remake of the 1987 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger; The Baby driver the writer-director will co-write the story with Michael Bacall, and they will be much more faithful to King’s best-selling novel. Bacall will write the script.

Simon Kinberg and Audrey Chon will produce through the Kinberg Genre Films banner, alongside Nira Park on Wright’s Complete Fiction banner. Kinberg brought the idea to Emma Watts, based on their long relationship, and then Kinberg courted Wright. Although the filmmaker is very selective, the prospect of a new The running man he is the one who intrigued him; to the point that, when asked if he could remake a film, he would choose that one. That was in 2017. Now it has come true.

This becomes a high-priority image for Paramount, and a novel, which King published as a brochure in 1982, a dystopian thriller that still seems prescient in the current collision between pop culture and politics, before social media escalated. the risk.

Wright is receiving great reviews for The Sparks Brothers, the documentary he directed and premiered last month at the virtual Sundance Film Festival. He is represented by CAA, Independent Talent Group and Nelson Davis; King by Paradigm; and Kinberg by CAA.