Stephen King’s The Running Man to get movie adaptation; Baby Driver helmer Edgar Wright set to direct

The screen adaptation of Stephen King’s The Running Man will be directed by Edgar Wright of Baby Driver and Shaun of the Dead-fame. The movie is produced by Paramount Pictures, as per reports.Wright is going to also co-write the story with Michael Bacall and the new film is going to be more closely based on the original dystopian novel than the 1987 film that starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. Bacall will be writing the script too. The first film was directed by Paul Michael Glaser and the upcoming movie is not a remake of the first.Simon Kinberg and Audrey Chon for Genre Films will produce the film along with Nira Park for Wright’s company Complete Fiction. Alex Jackson will be looking after the project at Paramount.Deadline pointed out how Wright had chosen The Running Man as a film he would like to remake when asked in 2017. Thus given his interest in the work, it will be exciting to see the end product. Many of King’s materials have been adapted for the screen, such as the IT series or The Shining, and have proved to be great successes.The 1982 novel is set in the futuristic United States of 2025 when the world has become a dystopia. Coming from the master of horror and crime, the story dealt with a violent gaming show called The Running Man that featured convicts battling to stay alive for 12 hours. The book was originally written under King’s pseudonym Richard Bachman.Wright recently had his music documentary The Sparks Brothers screened at the virtual Sundance Film Festival and the project has been received well. It was about the cult pop group Sparks. The director is all set to make a return to the feature film world with his upcoming psychological horror film Last Night in Soho, starring Anya-Taylor Joy, Thomasin McKenzie, Matt Smith and Diana Rigg.