Love both movies but Running Man seems to be a forgotten gem these days. Can't even get it on Blu-ray where I live

I read the book Running Man, enjoyed it much better than what the movie turned the story into. I'm an Arnie fan, but Running Man is not high on my list of fave Arnie movies. Total Recall is, though. Absolutely.

Surprised they haven't remade The Running Man yet. It seems the kind of concept Hollywood would recycle. They remade Total Recall.

@JustinJackFlash said:

Surprised they haven't remade The Running Man yet. It seems the kind of concept Hollywood would recycle. They remade Total Recall.

I haven't seen it, but the movie Gamer (2009) seems to have an awfully similar premise.

If Schwarzenegger returned to do a sequel they'd call it

The Walking Man

due to his older age.

I have seen Gamer, but I can't remember it well enough to say. In Gamer the protagonist is controlled by a kid playing the game, which is a bit different.

@JustinJackFlash said:

I have seen Gamer, but I can't remember it well enough to say. In Gamer the protagonist is controlled by a kid playing the game, which is a bit different.

Well the basic premise is that the hero has to participate in a game against an evil show-runner. The hero survives circumstances that a lesser man wouldn't. General violence ensues. And at the heart of it is a woman whom the hero both must save and with whom he'll find love in the end. Of course, in the end the villain has to meet an extremely brutal demise inside the TV show that he or she created. That's the outline of both movies, isn't it?

I don't think The Running Man needs to be re-made, though. It was fun and cheesy, but what made it memorable were lunk-headed Schwarzeneegger and sly, evil Richard Dawson. I suppose you could remake it as an extremely serious film today, with a knowing nod to the reality TV craze we've endured these past fifteen years, but does anyone really want that?

@AlienFanatic said:

I don't think The Running Man needs to be re-made, though. It was fun and cheesy, but what made it memorable were lunk-headed Schwarzeneegger and sly, evil Richard Dawson. I suppose you could remake it as an extremely serious film today, with a knowing nod to the reality TV craze we've endured these past fifteen years, but does anyone really want that?

I depends on how it was made I guess. If it was made in the vain of the recent Robocop and Total Recall remakes then definitely not. But they had very specific and complex stories and styles that made them difficult to remake coupled with zero passion behind those remakes.

With The Running Man it's a simple concept that a director could pretty much do what he wants with. Some of the best remakes come from films that were simple, dumb but fun exploitation films originally. The Fly being the best example. How many people have even seen the original to that? Cronenberg took a silly horror B-movie from the 50's and made it a dark metaphor for disease.

If you use your reality tv idea and get the right director I'd be interested. It could be done really seriously, but then it could be a crazily violent, demented satire. And with R rated movies coming back into fashion that isn't out of the question.

Running Man might do better with a reboot, just because the original story by Stephen King is not the campy/funny shlock that Shwarzenegger/Dawson made. The challenge is to attempt it when all we have in mind is the first movie.

Having said that, Judge Dredd was remade more gritty and serious than the first that Stallone starred in. I just see them as two separate standalone films altogether. I did not like the remake of Robocop as much as the first; same with Total Recall (although, again, Shwarzenegger 80s camp is likely creative liberty a step removes from author's original image).

@DRDMovieMusings said:

Running Man might do better with a reboot, just because the original story by Stephen King is not the campy/funny shlock that Shwarzenegger/Dawson made.

That too. There are loads of ways you could go about doing it. Again, because the film is a simple concept with little story it gives a lot of leeway. I haven't read the book but maybe there's more story there to draw from?

Having said that, Judge Dredd was remade more gritty and serious than the first that Stallone starred in. I just see them as two separate standalone films altogether. I did not like the remake of Robocop as much as the first; same with Total Recall (although, again, Shwarzenegger 80s camp is likely creative liberty a step removes from author's original image).

I'd be hard pressed to call Dredd a remake. I'd describe them as different adaptations of the same ongoing material. The same way The Dark Knight and Batman and Robin are. Plus us Judge Dredd fans like to pretend that Stallone atrocity doesn't exist. We're still pretty traumatized by it.

I don't think films like the Robocop remake are intended to be good. They're more for people who don't really know much about film to have a Friday night out. The name just creates a familiarity that goads them the way of that film. It's an easy way of watching an old classic film they've never seen without actually going through the "ordeal" of watching an old film.

Running Man might actually do well with a re-imagining. Consider the emerging technology of Deep Fakes coupled with the deliriously stupid world of reality TV. It's not too far off to consider a world in which capital punishment is brought to TV and/or a lot of the TV shown might be super-realistic simulation.

In many ways our society is becoming less-violent (as in less cases of the death penalty being carried out) but that trend may not continue. Look at how more desensitized to violence we've become since the 80's (R-rated movies can have much more graphic violence than back then) and how there seem to be more violent mass-killings such as all the Columbine copycats that have plagued our society in the last 20 years. It's not inconceivable that there may be a public demand to see real killing on TV, either pirated a la VIDEODROME, or state-sanctioned, such as filmed executions (of anyone who is convicted of "wrong-think").

Consider the scene where Captain Freedom "kills" Schwarzenegger. They could almost do that now with face replacement and make it look convincing. I'm sure that sort of thing is not too far off. Now imagine if we took that technology into the world of Pro Wrestling and made the stakes even higher for that kind of "reality" performance programming. Even further - we could discredit politicians or set people up with false evidence using this technology. A world where seeing and hearing is NOT believing may not be too far away.

It seems to me that any number of movies could be made to take advantage of these concepts. It just takes a lot of creativity by intelligent screenwriters out there to find compelling stories in there that take advantage of it.