Stephen King wrote a novel titled "The Running Man", published in 1982 under the name Richard Bachman. Five years later, a movie came out based on it, which had nearly nothing to do with it and a completely different plot. You probably think, "Yeah, there's a lot of movies that differ so much from the book", but this is different. It really isn't like the book at all. Let's take a look
The story of the NOVEL (SPOILERS):
Set in a dystopian future with TV propaganda, we follow a character of Ben Richards - poor, unemployed man living in a bad neighborhood, who has a sick daughter but can't afford a doctor. He decides to try out for the deadly TV games to get money for the necessary medical help. He eventually gets picked for the most popular show, The Running Man. The show goes like this - he gets a lot of money and gets released into the world with a 12 hour headstart. Then the hunt for him begins for 30 days. Once found, he's gonna get killed. People who spot him and call the police or the show's agents, called Hunters, will get a cash reward. Richards travels form New York to Boston to other states but eventually gets found and is seriously wounded. He finds a hostage and hijacks a plane. On it, he learns that his wife and daughter got stabbed to death in their apartment few days prior and eventually crashes the plane into the Game Network's headquarter.
The story of the 1987 MOVIE (SPOILERS)
Ben Richards is a cop who refused to shoot at the unarmed crowd and as a punishment gets framed and placed in prison. He and other prisoners cause a riot and manage to escape. He gets caught while trying to board a plane because of a woman working for the TV. The Running Man, the most popular show run by propaganda TV, nabs him as the main star along with two of his other buddies from the prison. The show is like a live video game - contestants in colorful costumes get sent via sled to a large cordoned off zone where they have to go through domains of different Bosses (called Stalkers), who are like wrestlers and video game characters in one, and survive 8 hours. Sub Zero who plays hockey using people (literally), Buzzsaw who fights with chainsaw, Fireball who flies and uses flamethrower and Dynamo, an Opera singer in a lit up costume covered in bulbs, who shoots power arcs from his hands. Richards eventually kills one Hunter after another, but his fellow friends die. Amber, the woman responsible for his apprehension, gets thrown into the game as a punishment for trying to find out if Richards is actually guilty of what he's been accused of (murdering the unarmed crowd himself). He is then found, unknowingly to the Network (who, unable to kill him with the Stalkers, fakes his death) by Resistance group who ask him to lead the attack on the Network building. They do so successfully and air a montage exposing the Network's lies.
So as you can see, two different plots, two different characters, nearly nothing in common, and the only elements taken from the novel are just basic ideas.
So why would the studio purchase rights for the book and then completely discard its plots and characters, and use only the names of some characters, the name of the show, the (very, very) basic idea of a show that kills people and a propaganda network television?
Because at first the movie intended to actually adapt the book, with Christopher Reeve in the lead and George Cosmatos, the director of Rambo: First Blood Part II and Cobra, attached to direct. Cosmatos dropped out because he didn't believe the movie could be done for $15 Million. After he was gone, the studio realized he was right and the budget went up to $24 Million. Everything changed when the studio scored Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was already a huge star after the success of The Terminator, Commando and Predator. The script and the book was thrown away and the whole movie was entirely rewritten as an "Arnold Schwarzenegger Movie", tailored specifically for him. The movie was written by Steve De Souza, who a year later would write Die Hard, but already penned such hits as 48 Hrs and Commando. "We kept the premise but that was about it", he said in Starlog Magazine #125.
In the same magazine, de Souza explains creating the character of Ben Richards for Arnold from scratch. For example, Arnold would not have been believable as someone who is unemployed and cannot get any kind of work. he is a military looking type. The whole show was created form scratch as well of course, but the idea that people can volunteer for it was thrown away as well because of Arnold as well - the writer did not think he would've been someone who would volunteer for it, so it was changed to a Gladiator-type of a show. Arnold was also the reason why Comic Book-like Stalkers were created - to create formidable and strong villains for Arnold to fight.
Steve de Souza: "(In the novel) the people who killed you were called Hunters. They could be anyone, like the situation in 'Three Days of the Condor'. (...) One of the biggest problems is creating a formidable villain for Arnold (...)We've created the stalkers who are the show's hitmen stars. They're all guys about six and a half feet tall, and their costumes looko like Gobots or Transformers. (...)These characters, as exciting as they sound on paper, seem to have stepped right out of pages of a comic book (...) Like wrestler's, who wear ridiculous costumes and scream, the Stalkers know they're acting (...) There are elements in 'The Running Man' (movie) that are definitely comic book" (Starlog #125)
Below, Stalkers and their dominions
Also, it was felt that the novel was too political and dealt with outdated problems. "I felt that the novel had all the earmarks of being written in the late 1960's. (...) The political view of that particular America was totally outdated", said de Souza in the Starlog Magazine. Plus, "There weren't any real antagonists".
Andy Davis was the director who started the film but was fired quickly and replaced with Paul Michael Glaser, who mostly directed Starsky and Hutch and Miami Vice episodes. He admitted on audio commentary that he didn't bother to read the novel and just read the script.
It is ironic and amusing to see the Novel releases from 1987 all promoting the movie and using the film's imagery on the covers
So what does get carried over from the book?
1. Basic idea of a TV show in which people die. However, the shows, and their premise, are entirely different.
2. Idea of a world ruled with an iron hand by the Government which uses TV for propaganda (another reason given in the movie is to keep the nation busy watching tv so they don't protest...)
3. Three names from the book.
-Ben Richards,
-Laughlin - In the movie played by Yaphett Kotto of Alien fame, he is a buddy of Ben who aided in his escape. In the book, Laughlin is another contestant as well, but he only meets Richards in the lobby waiting for the elevator, and is a white handsome man with big sense of humor. Their paths never cross after the lobby meeting
- Damon Killian - In the movie he is the creator of the show and its producer and host. In the book, Killian is not the host, Bobby Thompson is. He's an executive producer and he's black.
4. The coveralls in which Ben Richards enter the show are very much as described in the book:
"The material was soft, clingy, almost like silk, but tougher than silk. A single nylon zipper ran up the front. They were all dark blue, and they all had the Games emblem on the right breast pocket. "
5. Richards gets an offer to become one of the hunting agents (Stalkers in the movie) when things go South for the show.
I first saw the movie as a kid, at the time everyone was being swept away by Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. Once I saw the two Terminator movies in 1991, I wanted to see everything with Arnold. Like everyone else. And like everyone else, I did. Of course, what is not to love as a kid of the time - R rating, Arnold being classic Arnold, scifi, colorful comic book villains, and plot of a real-life video game. Soon I knew it by memory like every other Arnold movie.
I revisited the film in my mid 20's I believe, and of course, there's no question that objectively the movie is utterly ridiculous. It's pure, quintessential 1980's cheese, down to the final scene of kissing the girl to a cheesy 80's pop song. But this is exactly why the movie is fun. It's so cheesy, so over the top and ridiculous, it's hard not to enjoy it. And of course, it's basically what you used to call an "Arnold" movie. It's a vehicle for him, and Arnold being Arnold, meaning he's redoing his role of Matrix from Commando - an unbeatable, one-liners-filled soldier.
The movie wasn't as big of a hit as other Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, but it was a hit nevertheless, making a profit on its budget in USA alone (Worldwide Box Office Numbers are not available online). The movie spawned typical scifi merchandise, like video games on multiple consoles
In the recent years, there's been plenty of very cool rereleases of the film, featuring audio commentary with the director
So what did Stephen King think of the movie? Of course, the movie is completely different than the novel, and it's the area that King focused on:
"[My version of protagonist Ben Richards] is about as far from the Arnold Schwarzenegger character in the movie as you can get." - From an introduction included in the 1999 re-printing of his 1985 novel "The Long Walk"
"One major reason Stephen King isn't a fan of The Running Man movie is just how little it retains from the novel it's based on. It centers on a character named Ben Richards competing on a dystopian game show called The Running Man, put on by a sinister TV network, but that's about all the two stories have in common. As with Lawnmower Man, King demanded his name not be used in the film's marketing, although in this case a lawsuit wasn't required to enforce it. While King tends to be mostly forgiving of adaptations that make big changes to his work, he really doesn't seem to like when the essence of the story and characters are altered, as seen with The Shining." (ScreenRant.com)
I've read the novel about 8 years ago for the first time. Just on a whim, I decided to read it. I've never been interested in reading it before because, well, the movie works because of Arnold, but without him, I didn't think all this stuff would have worked well on paper. Little did I know at the time that the novel has basically nothing to do with the movie. I was absolutely shocked that even the basic skeletal plot structure is different. I loved the book up until the point after which Richards gets betrayed because I wanted more of the country hopping, identity changing kind of a thing, but after I just re-read the book in preparation for the new movie adaptation, I think the entire book is one of the best books I've ever read. Certainly the biggest page turner I've ever read. There were books that I couldn't put down, but there weren't books in which my heart was pounding and I couldn't wait for the next page. I was excited to see that the book will get a new adaptation up until I saw the first trailer which showed many of the intense thriller scenes changed to comedic ones. It looks like the movie will actually use the book's plot and characters, but will still use the original movie's comedic tone and many of its elements, which I won't be listing just yet but will after the movie will get released. Till then, see you next time
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