The Running Man’s Ending Goes Against Stephen King’s Book

The ending of Edgar Wright’s The Running Man goes against Stephen King’s book.

King’s The Running Man novel, which was published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, came out in 1982. It was previously adapted into a 1987 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger — a movie that takes a lot of creative liberties from the book. King has said that he’s not too fond of that version as, per USA Today, he compared it to This Is Spinal Tap, meaning that it “goes to 11,” and said that his wife watched it “with her finger in her ears.”

Wright’s version, which is now playing in United States theaters, is a more faithful adaptation; however, the movie seriously strays away from the source material in its final five minutes.

How does Stephen King’s The Running Man end?

Much like Wright’s movie, the end of King’s The Running Man sees Ben Richards (Glen Powell) piloting a plane that is headed for the headquarters of the Games Network. Suffering from a mortal gunshot wound, Richards proceeds to crash the vehicle into the building, which then kills both himself and antagonist Dan Killian (Josh Brolin).

“Heeling over slightly, the Lockheed struck the Games Building dead on, three quarters of the way up,” the end of the novel reads. “Its tanks were still better than a quarter full. Its speed was slightly over five hundred miles an hour. The explosion was tremendous, lighting up the night like the wrath of God, and it rained fire twenty blocks away.”

Wright’s movie depicts the moment of Ben piloting the aircraft towards the building; however, before it collides, it’s shot down by a missile, and Ben is presumed to be killed. Ben isn’t really dead, though, as the final five minutes reveal that he’s survived the crash. With a rebellion growing to take down Brolin’s company, Richards then reappears at the premiere of the next season of The Running Man, at which point a riot breaks out and Killian is murdered on live television.

The ending of the movie is quickly proving to be controversial, as many fans of the source material prefer the more ambiguous conclusion that lets them imagine or decide what happens next. In revealing that Ben is alive, the film ends on a much more definitive and on-the-nose kind of note. Additionally, the book leaves it ambiguous as to whether or not Ben’s family was actually killed or if that was a lie told by Killian, while Wright provides a definitive answer on that matter as well.

Source: Comingsoon.net