EXCLUSIVE: Paramount Pictures enters into an agreement with Edgar Wright to develop a new adaptation of The running man, the futuristic novel by Stephen King that the author first published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. This will not be a remake of the 1987 film in which Arnold Schwarzenegger starred; the Baby driver writer-director will co-write the story with Michael Bacall, and they will be more faithful to King’s best-selling novel. Bacall will write the screenplay.
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Simon Kinberg will co-produce with Nira Park from Kinberg’s Genre Films banner from Wright’s Complete Fiction banner. Genrey Films, Audrey Chon, is executive producer. Kinberg brought the idea to Emma Watts, based on their long relationship, and thereafter Kinberg paid tribute to Wright. Although the filmmaker is very selective, the prospect of a new The running man is one that intrigued him; to the point that on the question of whether he could make a film, he would choose the film. It was back in 2017. Now it has become real.
It becomes a top-priority photo for Paramount, and a novel King published as a paperback in 1982, a dystopian thriller that still feels prosperous in the current clash between pop culture and politics, before social media put the game at stake. Alex Jackson stops it at Paramount.
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Wright gives good reviews for The Sparks Brothers, the documentary he directed and which premiered at the virtual Sundance Film Festival last month. His next film, Last Night In Soho, gets a spring release by Focus and he is working on an adaptation by Jane Goldman and Adrian McKinty. The chain by Universal, and a Baby driver repeat. He is fascinated by CAA, Independent Talent Group and Nelson Davis; King by Paradigm; and Kinberg by CAA.