History Main / TheRunningMan

After being declared a public enemy on the show, Richards is given $4,800 cash and a pocket video camera and turned loose. His family will win $100 for every hour he stays alive; if he can survive for 30 days, he wins the grand prize of $1 billion. He also gets a 12-hour head start before the network sends out a team of trackers known as "Hunters" to find and kill him. He can travel anywhere in the world, and each day he must videotape two messages and courier them to the TV show. Without these videotaped messages, he loses the prize money but the Hunters will continue their search. [[spoiler:Despite the producer's claims to the contrary, as soon as the Network receives a videotaped message, the Hunters immediately know from the postmark the runner's approximate location.]] Viewers can earn cash rewards by calling the network with tips on his whereabouts. To date, there have been no survivors - [[spoiler:and the producer frankly states that he never expects there to be any.]]

** [[LiveAndLetDie Mister Big]] plays Laughlin.

** He [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere quit]] partway through the film because he became bitter about what the game had become. Granted, it's very anticlimatic, but serves as possible {{foreshadowing}} for Sven doing the same thing later at a key moment.

** [[TheFugitive Andrew Davis]] was originally going to direct the film (after three previous directors pulled out) but was fired a week into production due to going overbudget and being four days behind schedule. Paul Michael Glaser (Starsky from ''StarskyAndHutch'' finished the film.

Ben Richards desperately requires money to get medicine for his [[LittlestCancerPatient ill daughter]], Cathy. To stop his wife Sheila from continuing to prostitute herself to pay the bills, Richards turns to a state-sponsored game show network, which runs several [[DeadlyGame TV game shows]]. Contestants win money by surviving challenges such as ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiac_stress_test Treadmill to Bucks]]'', where a person with a heart or respiratory condition runs on a treadmill, or the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin self-explanatory]] ''Swim the Crocodiles''. After a rather embarrassing screening process, Ben is selected for the most popular game: ''The Running Man''.

He is given $4,800, and his family will win $100 for every hour he stays alive. If he survives for 30 days, he will win $1 Billion. He also gets 12 hours of advantage before the network throws the Hunters on him. He can travel anywhere in the world, and each day he must videotape two messages and courier them to the TV show. Without these videotaped messages, he loses the prize money but the Hunters will continue their search. [[spoiler:Despite the producer's claims to the contrary, as soon as the Network receives a videotaped message, the Hunters immediately know from the postmark the runner's approximate location.]] When the runner is caught, he is killed live on TV.

** He [[ScrewThisImOutaHere quit]] partway through the film because he became bitter about what the game had become. Granted, it's very anticlimatic, but serves as possible {{foreshadowing}} for Sven doing the same thing later at a key moment.

* OurGraphicsWillSuckinTheFuture: Apparently, wireframe computer graphics are state-of-the-art in 2019.

He is given $4,800, and his family will win $100 for every hour he stays alive. If he survives for 30 days, he will win $1 Billion. He also gets 12 hours of advantage before the network throws the Hunters on him. He can travel anywhere in the world, and each day he must videotape two messages and courier them to the TV show. Without a videotaped message, he loses the prize money but the Hunters will continue their search. [[spoiler:Despite the producer's claims to the contrary, as soon as the Network receives a videotaped message, the Hunters immediately know from the postmark the runner's approximate location.]] When the runner is caught, he is killed live on TV.

* {{Dystopia}}: Similar to the one seen in ''The Long Walk''.

* WhateverHappenedToTheMouse: Captain Freedom.

* ArnoldSchwarzenegger: As the Hero.

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: In the book version. The few allies Richards makes in his journey are heavily implied to die, his warnings about the mega corps poisoning the air being the cause of all the cancer spreading among the low class citizens are censored, and his wife and daughter are revealed to be dead since the beginning of the hunt.]]

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: in the book version only, when Ben Richards with his last ounce of strength flips the aeroplane into autopilot and crashes it into the Games Network skyscraper.]]

Ben Richards desperately requires money to get medicine for his [[LittlestCancerPatient ill daughter]], Cathy. To stop his wife Sheila from continuing to prostitute herself to pay the bills, Richards turns to the Games Federation, which runs several [[DeadlyGame TV game shows]]. Contestants win money by surviving challenges such as ''Treadmill to Bucks'', where a person with a heart or respiratory condition runs on a treadmill, or the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin self-explanatory]] ''Swim the Crocodiles''. After a rather embarrassing screening process, Ben is selected for the most popular game: ''The Running Man''.

** Could be an ''inversion'' of FridgeHorror, as it's unlikely that those three were innocent like Richards, who was an exception to the show's "no political prisoners" arrangement with the justice system. At least if they're ReleasedToElsewhere, they'd ''not'' set loose to resume whatever crimes got them the death penalty in the first place.

* AltumVidetur: The gratuitous use of Latin in Richards' contract. All of it is real legal latin, but wildly out of place.

** TheCastShowoff: When Dynamo (Erland van Lidth) sings the aria from Act III of ''{{The Marriage of Figaro}}'', he's actually singing in that scene. Presumably after he got cast, someone found out he could sing opera and decided they ''had'' to throw that in somewhere.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotAwesome: Dynamo

** TheCastShowoff: When Dynamo (Erland van Lidth) sings the aria from Act III of ''{{The Marriage of Figaro}}, he's actually singing in that scene. Presumably after he got cast, someone found out he could sing opera and decided they ''had'' to throw that in somewhere.

* AdaptationDecay: All that's left is the name of the hero, the last name of the main villain, the name of the show involved and a couple of plot elements (the totalitarian [[{{Dystopia}} dystopic]] society and Richards kidnapping a woman and taking her to an airport).

The story, written by StephenKing under his PenName of "Richard Bachman", is better known for its [[TheMovie film version]] with ArnoldSchwarzenegger and [[Series/FamilyFeud Richard Dawson]], which [[InNameOnly turned the story]] into one of a BloodSport played by condemned criminals, and Richards' reason for entering the contest changes -- [[spoiler:he was framed for a massacre that he was actually trying to stop]].

* ActorAllusion: Just before he's launched into the Zone, Richards promises that [[TheTerminator "I'll be back."]] To say nothing of Richard Dawson's role as a [[Series/FamilyFeud game show host]].

* GameShowHost: Killian. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] to a certain degree by being played by [[Series/FamilyFeud Richard Dawson]], who has been characterized at times as a bit of an egotist behind the scenes.