The Running Man pulls audiences into a complex, dystopian world, and doesn’t pull many punches in introducing it. From the mind of legendary author Stephen King, The Running Man was first a 1982 novel published under King’s pseudonym, Richard Bachman, set in a then-futuristic 2020s dystopian society. Similar to The Hunger Games, King’s novel depicts a version of America where, under authoritarian rule, citizens are brainwashed and entertained by a propagandized TV series called The Running Man, among other titles produced by the sinister Games Network.
Glen Powell leads the film’s cast as Ben Richards, a man who reluctantly agrees to be a contestant on The Running Man in order to provide for his wife and sick daughter. The game is orchestrated by network head Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) and presented by stageman Bobby T (Colman Domingo). Once Richards enters the game, a group of soldiers called the Hunters, led by Evan McCone (Lee Pace), track him down and try to kill him.
Warning: This includes SPOILERS for The Running Man!
Free-Vee & Games Network Explained
The Running Man is the marquee show of a television network called Games Network, a government-operated media conglomerate that supplies every American home with devices called “Free-Vees.” The Free-Vee is a seemingly innocuous entertainment device on its own, but its content is crafted for the particular purpose of control. The media created by Games Network is violent and cruel, as exhibited when Ben and his daughter watch a show where a man with a heart condition gains money by running on a treadmill, ultimately leading to his death.
Another show included in The Running Man is The Americanos, a spoof on Keeping Up With the Kardashians that’s intended to rot its audiences’ brains, essentially turning them into vegetables. Games Network’s two displayed methods of entertainment are orchestrated to make the general American population stupid and violent, allowing the government easier control. With everyone consuming Free-Vee, everyone will follow the central narrative posited by the elite without digging deeper and asking questions, and rather than rise up against their mental captors, they’re led to vilify other working-class citizens. Free-Vee turns the people against each other.
In the world of The Running Man, books and other forms of physical media are uncommon and viewed as socially bizarre. This is why characters like Molie and Bradley use old antenna TV sets, as their lack of digital/internet components makes them less susceptible to government control. Low-tech media is the only way rebel groups can spread information without the fear of artificial intelligence and other digital powers altering and controlling their content. Not to mention, the Free-Vee devices have built-in surveillance mechanics, allowing the government to keep close tabs on its citizens.
How ‘The Running Man’ Game Actually Works
The Running Man game lets three candidates out into the world, where they have a twelve-hour grace period before the hunt begins. The goal is to survive a total of 30 days, and every day survived earns the participant an increasing quantity of “New Dollars.” To earn this money, the participants must submit 10-minute videotapes every day, which are brought to Games Network and “edited” for content. In the film, this involves AI manipulation, completely changing Richards’ words to make him appear as a vicious, out-of-control villain. Civilians can also take part by reporting the location of spotted contestants, which allows them to profit from the brutality.
A man using the pseudonym, the Apostle (Daniel Ezra), is a rebel video creator who seeks to expose Games Network’s lies by pointing out the inconsistencies and lies exhibited in The Running Man and other games. He’s a student of the network’s content technique and spots the paradigm at play with Ben Richards and the other contestants. The three Running Man archetypes are: 1) the hopeless dude (Martin Herlihy), a man who, by all means, should not be in The Running Man, and who quickly gets himself killed. 2) the negative (wo)man, which Laughlin (Katy O’Brian) fulfills, focusing more on the lavish opportunities presented by the games than the actual survival. 3) the final dude.
The final dude, in this case, is Ben Richards. He’s the one that Games Network wants to save for their climax; the one audiences are most entertained by, and who generally has the most potential. This is where the rules of the game go out the window, as the Network will purposefully leave the final dude alive until the negative man is killed, giving Richards an advantage he uses to form a strategy with the rebels. The main takeaway here is that the house plays dirty, and the rules are always exactly what Games Network finds the most lucrative in a given moment.
How ‘The Running Man’s World Differs in Books and Film
The Running Man movie incorporates some notable differences from Stephen King’s original book. Of course, the monetary amounts of New Dollars are significantly higher in the film, which is to account for real-world inflation. The Apostle pseudonym and the idea of a video-creating conspiracy theorist don’t exist in the book, nor does any organized resistance that Ben supports. This makes the book version of The Running Man’s ending much more grim. AI is much less prominent in the novel, with Ben’s tapes being dubbed over, rather than visually manipulated like they are in the film.
The novel doesn’t go all that in-depth about the government or world politics, but there’s more of a sense of how Free-Vee has taken over as the primary source of media and information. Public libraries, which, at the time the novel was written, were a prevalent symbol of freely available information, are behind a significant paywall that most of The Running Man’s world is unable to afford.