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Last week, I had the chance to marvel at the incredible year this is for Stephen King fans around the world. Following the arrival of Osgood Perkins’ bloody and brilliant adaptation of The Monkey back in February, three more King movies are on their way to the big screen before the end of 2025 (Mike Flanagan’s The Life Of Chuck, Francis Lawrence’s The Long Walk and Edgar Wright’s The Running Man), and I had a chance to preview all of them while on the ground covering CinemaCon 2025. I was entranced by everything I saw and heard about the three extremely different films, as I not only got to watch impressive footage but also hear some great behind-the-scenes stories.
One of these great stories – specifically one told by Josh Brolin – leads this week’s edition of The King Beat, but it’s but one of three headlines in this week’s column digging into the latest news from the world of Stephen King. There’s a whole lot to discuss, so let’s dig in!
The Running Man Production Devised A Super Cool Way To Make Josh Brolin More Comfortable Performing While Looking Right At The Camera
When an actor does their thing in the making of a movie, the general idea is for them to ignore the existence of the camera. Creating an authentic performance means forgetting the artifice of the filmmaking process, and that’s hard to do if there is an over-awareness of the lens capturing your every move. This in mind, it’s somewhat understandable that Josh Brolin faced a special kind of freak out in the making of The Running Man when the shooting of a sequence required him to perform right down the barrel, so to speak.
Brolin spoke about this experience during an entertaining luncheon at CinemaCon last week where the actor participated in a Q&A panel with writer/director Edgar Wright and Running Man co-stars Glen Powell and Colman Domingo. He spoke about his time playing the villainous Killian in the upcoming Stephen King movie, and he specifically referenced a time on set when he was unnerved by a setup on set that required him to act directly into the camera. Said Brolin,
When [Edgar Wright] said, ‘Look, I need you to look right into camera,’ there was a massive panic moment. Like, ‘What?’ Because I can’t play with [Glen Powell] and I’ve been playing smaller scenes with him before with these long speeches that were coming up.
In The Running Man, Josh Brolin plays the film’s central antagonist: the lead producer of the Games Network, which is the state-run media channel that broadcast’s the film’s titular reality show. Some of the character’s key scenes in the book are intense one-on-one interactions with Ben Richards (including an early sequence where the protagonist is recruited to be on The Running Man), and Edgar Wright’s approach for at least one of these moments apparently puts us directly in Ben’s point of view.
Acting directly into a camera is hard not only because it forces a performer to recognize the existence of the lens, but also because it means that there is nobody opposite them to play off of emotionally. But Wright is an immensely talented filmmaker who works with other very talented people, and Brolin explained that the crew was able to devise an awesome workaround for this issue that ultimately made him more comfortable on set. He continued,
So there was something that he put on the camera, which we didn’t even think of before, which allowed Glen’s face to be reflected right inside the camera. So I was like acting to a hologram of Mr. Powell, and we were able to have some semblance of chemistry together.
Cool, right?
The discussion of this special kind of invention behind-the-scenes of The Running Man has made me all the more fascinated by the film and excited for what Edgar Wright has in store… but it wasn’t just the discussion of the upcoming 2025 movie that amped my curiosity about the film.
After Getting An Early First Look At The Running Man, I’m Curious If/How The Stephen King Movie Will Adapt The Book’s Super Dark Ending
SPOILER WARNING: If you haven’t read The Running Man and don’t want to be spoiled on the ending (which may end up being adapted), you may want to skip down to the next section!
When it was first announced in early 2021 that Edgar Wright’s remake of The Running Man was getting made, I wrote a feature explaining that I felt two aspects of the source material would probably be better off getting changed – despite the whole initiative of the project being the creation of a more faithful adaptation than the 1987 movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. My first note was that protagonist Ben Richards should be cast with a Black actor (allowing the film to highlight systemic racial issues in our modern justice system)… but that notion admittedly went out the window as soon as it was announced that Glen Powell was playing the lead.
My second point was that it would probably be best if the remake didn’t directly adapt the dark, potentially controversial ending from Stephen King’s book… but based on the footage that was showcased at CinemaCon 2025 last week, the project might be ignoring that suggestion as well.
To rewind a bit, the reason why I felt the ending should be changed for the new movie is simple: the actions by the hero of the story are disturbingly reminiscent of the events that occurred on September 11, 2001. At the end of Stephen King’s book (which was first published in 1982), the protagonist is horrified to discover that the sinister Games Network not only doesn’t plan to deliver his earned prize money to his family after his participation as a contestant on The Running Man, but they have been straight-up killed. Emotionally devastated, Ben’s response to the news is to hijack a plane and fly it into the state-run media’s skyscraper headquarters.
I don’t think I need to explain beyond that recounting of events why that may not be the best direction for Edgar Wright’s upcoming film – but that’s why I was so surprised to catch a couple of standout moments in the Running Man CinemaCon footage. While that material has not yet made its way officially online, I was surprised to notice that there were shots of a fight aboard a mid-flight airplane and a pilot being killed. There wasn’t any specific context presented for these clips in the edit, but seeing them, my brain immediately clicked back to the extremely dark conclusion of the novel.
Overall, the first look at The Running Man suggested that the Edgar Wright film is going to be much more “fun” than the source material (as evidenced by a shot where Glen Powell lies on a bed and slaps his own tighty-whities-clad ass and Michael Cera kills a bunch of soldiers with a super soaker and an electrified floor), and I would be stunned if the blockbuster presented a faithful adaptation of the ending… but there is now enough evidence that makes me question that assumption. Frankly, though, that only makes me more excited to see the movie when it arrives in theaters later this year – specifically on November 7.
I’m Super Curious How One Plot Description Detail For Mike Flanagan’s Upcoming Carrie Will Impact And Change The Story From Stephen King’s Book
To be perfectly honest, I’m not totally sure what to expect from the Carrie series that is now in development from writer/director Mike Flanagan at Amazon MGM. On the one hand, Flanagan has an impeccable record when it comes to adapting the works of Stephen King – with Gerald’s Game, Doctor Sleep and The Life Of Chuck all ranking among the best King movies of all time – but this is also a book we’ve already seen adapted for the screen three previous times. What could the show possibly add to the massive legacy?
Going by new details that arrived online this week, one detail may be revelations about Carrie White’s father.
This week, Variety reported the news that actress Summer H. Howell is nearing the signing of a deal that will see her play the titular role in Carrie, and beyond the casting, the trade report also includes an official logline for the project. It reads:
A bold and timely reimagining of the story of misfit high-schooler Carrie White (Howell), who has spent her life in seclusion with her domineering mother. After her father’s sudden and untimely death, Carrie finds herself contending with the alien landscape of public High School, a bullying scandal that shatters her community, and the emergence of mysterious telekinetic powers.
Most of that information – from the domineering mother to bullying to telekinetic powers – is very familiar to anyone even remotely familiar with the story of Carrie… but the “father’s sudden and untimely death” part is new and intriguing. The paternal side of the eponymous protagonist’s genetic code is not something that has ever gotten any focus in previous adaptations of the Stephen King novel, and I wonder how significant a hook it will be in Mike Flanagan’s vision.
In the book, Carrie’s father is Ralph White, a fundamentalist Christian and construction worker who dies in an accident prior to his daughter’s birth – but it seems that the show will be going in a different direction with the character. Instead of Carrie being raised by Margaret as a single mother, it seems her dad will be around into her teenage years and potentially home schooling her before his “untimely death.” If this is the case, I have three standout questions: 1) Will investigation into his demise be a plot point on the show? 2) What will having Ralph around mean for the characterization of Margaret? 3) Will the paternal presence reveal more about the origins of Carrie’s psychic abilities?
Mike Flanagan has promised that there is an answer to the question of “Why remake Carrie again?” and I wonder if this detail about the developing project may be significant insight. The show hasn’t gotten an official series pickup yet, but that news is expected imminently, and when that news comes, we’ll hopefully get to learn more about the plans for the adaptation.
That brings us to the end of this week’s edition of The King Beat, but as always, I’ll be back next Thursday here on CinemaBlend with a brand new column digging into all of the latest news from the world of Stephen King.
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