Tom Cruise had a great impact on this Stephen King movie

Stephen King’s novel in 1982 “The Running Man” is a sandy dystopian action thriller with a disheveled protagonist named Ben Richards. He was adapted to a Campy film in 1987 that starred in Arnold Schwarzenegger and since then he has adapted to a film for the public in 2025. This new film, starring Glen Powell as Ben Richards, is presented as a mix between King’s book and King Man’s movie “Running Man”; It has many of the Campier elements of the movie Schwarzenegger, but it also seems to be following the basic points of the plot of the original novel.

Probably the greatest apparent adaptive flourishing in the trailer is Powell’s launch as Richards. In King’s novel, the character is Atlético enough to do it well in the running Man Game Show, but is also malnourished due to the poverty he suffered for decades before the incident of the story. But when Powell has talked about Richards of the book, it seems he is thinking more about Schwarzenegger’s version.

“I knew that, according to Stephen King’s book, Ben Richards was a tank,” Powell explained previously In a GQ profile. “I thought, ‘that’s fine, I have to be a weapon.’ And that’s why I trained the way I trained in this.

Of course, not all film adaptations must be faithful to the book, and a version of “The Running Man” with a protagonist of fans is not inherently bad. So, if Powell was aimed at portraying a muscular and striking advantage, it is good that the legend of the action Tom Cruise was close to helping him. As Powell explained to GQ, Cruise not only advised him about how to train for the great acrobatics of the film, but also helped him become the tank that Ben Richards is apparently supposed to. As Powell said:

“I went from going, ‘Oh, I’m an actor in a movie’ For ‘I am a high performance athlete’. And I am very lucky to have someone like Tom who could literally go, ‘Hey, what do I do to survive something?’ “

Powell worked alongside “Cruise” on the set of “Top Gun: Maverick”, although he hardly starred in the movie at all. As Cruise told GQ in the same profile, Powell had tried the role of Goose’s son, who ended up being played by Miles Teller; Instead, Powell was offered the minor role of Lieutenant Jake “Hangman” Sieresin, but initially refused. It was simply not the main role I was looking for.

Cruise convinced him to take the job anyway, and the two seem to have developed a good mentor/mentor relationship since then. Powell recalled how Cruise gave him advice not only on how to train his body, but also about how to deal with all the additional attention that comes with his increase in fame. As Powell explained:

“Basically he said: ‘Hey, it will be very, very strong. It is your work to release the volume. Just remember that you have your hand in that switch. You have the ability to raise that noise or lower it.’ And really simply rejecting the noise and trusting in your own instinct has been a real gift from heaven for me.”

The Powell de Cruise tutoring makes sense since the youngest actor has similar dreams of being a star star, that is, someone who could even lead his own series of eight -parts action movies in the future (à la cruise and the films “Mission: Impossible”). Like Cruise, Powell also has a beautiful but different face and has been able to act with much more scope than many give credit (especially in films such as “Hit Man”). Powell may not have what is necessary to give a 100% precise representation of Ben Richards of “The Running Man”, but seems ready to stay on the big screen in the coming decades.

“The Running Man” will open in theaters on November 14, 2025.