The original film version of The Running Man traveled a far bumpier road than its new counterpart.
Based on Stephen King‘s 1982 novel, director Paul Michael Glaser’s initial dystopian movie starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as a police officer who is framed for murder and competes for his freedom on a game show where professional killers hunt down convicted criminals.
Producer George Linder was at an airport when he picked up King’s book, published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, and envisioned it as a vehicle for Christopher Reeve. Ultimately, Schwarzenegger landed the role, and screenwriter Steven E. de Souza — who penned the star’s 1985 title Commando — remembers the project cycling through various directors.
“As the different directors would come in, I would have to do a revision for their vision,” de Souza, who is also known for writing 48 Hrs., Die Hard and Street Fighter, tells The Hollywood Reporter.
Filmmaker Andrew Davis, who would go on to helm the Oscar-winning adaptation of The Fugitive, landed the gig but was fired two weeks into the shoot for falling behind. Producers then turned to Glaser — best known as Starsky on TV’s Starsky & Hutch — who had made his feature directorial debut with 1986 thriller Band of the Hand.
De Souza wishes that the film had remained truer to the source material’s cross-country chase, but production delays and false starts made it impossible. “We exhausted our resources, so the movie ended up being smaller,” the scribe recalls. “We had to reconceive it as all in one geographical area and broadcast on one night.”
The screenwriter remembers helping out the crew during the ADR process by doing a Schwarzenegger impression as placeholders for a number of lines before the star could record the actual versions. But in the rush to complete the movie, some sound editors were brought in late in the post-production game and hadn’t known to look out for the impersonations. “In the existing movie, I still have three lines of [Schwarzenegger] dialogue where it’s me,” de Souza says. “My family can recognize them.”
María Conchita Alonso, Richard Dawson, Jim Brown and Jesse Ventura rounded out the cast, and Tri-Star released the film Nov. 13, 1987, collecting a solid, if not stellar, $38 million at the box office ($109 million today). THR’s review deemed “the noisy movie a welcome reality blocker.” King, known for being tough on adaptations of his work, has criticized the film, as has Schwarzenegger, who was close with Davis.
The property gets back on its feet with director Edgar Wright’s Glen Powell-led update, which hits theaters Nov. 14 from Paramount and has already earned King’s praise. For his part, Glaser has positive memories from his film: “I did my best with the tools I had.”
A version of this story appeared in the Nov. 5 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
