We recently learned that Paramount Pictures' and Edgar Wright's long-gestating adaptation of Stephen King's The Running Man is finally moving forward with Glen Powell (Top Gun: Maverick, Twisters) in the lead role of Ben Richards, and rumors are beginning to swirl about the movie's supporting cast.
Following on from a recent report that Sydney Sweeney - who previously starred alongside Powell in romantic comedy Anyone But You - is being eyed to play the female lead, Daniel Richtman has heard that Katy O'Brian is also up for an undisclosed supporting role.
No details on who she would play, but there are really only two significant female characters in the book: Richards' wife Shelia and his hostage, Amelia.
O'Brian had a small role in season 3 of The Mandalorian, and also played Jentorra in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. She's been getting a lot of attention in Hollywood thanks to her more recent work in Love Lies Bleeding.
Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Baby Driver, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) was first announced as director back in 2021, and updates on the project had been pretty scarce until we got word that Powell had signed on to star during CinemaCon back in April.
The sci-fi novel, which King penned under the pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1982, was previously adapted as a 1987 movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, but this new take will not be a remake, and is expected to stick much closer to the original story.
King's book is a dystopian thriller set in the United States during the year 2025, when the nation's economy is in ruins and world violence is at an all-time high. Desperate to earn enough money to save his family, protagonist Ben Richards decides to participate in a popular - and incredibly dangerous - game show called The Running Man, which allows contestants to go anywhere in the world... while being hunted down by a team of trained killers.
This is just a rumor for now, but Richtman has been spot on with most of his casting scoops of late, so we wouldn't be surprised if the trades confirm fairly soon - if Sweeney does take the role, that is!
You can check out the trailer and synopsis for the Schwarzenegger movie below.
"In a dystopian America, the country totalitarian state where the favorite television program is The Running Man -- a game show in which prisoners must run to freedom to avoid a brutal death. Having been made a scapegoat by the government, an imprisoned Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has the opportunity to make it back to the outside again by being a contestant on the deadly show, although the twisted host, Damon Killian (Richard Dawson), has no intention of letting him escape."