Glen Powell (Top Gun: Maverick, Twisters) is set to play Ben Richards in Paramount Pictures' and Edgar Wright's long-gestating adaptation of Stephen King's The Running Man, and we may know who'll be joining him as the movie's female lead.
According to reliable insider Daniel Richtman, Sydney Sweeney - who previously starred alongside Powell in romantic comedy Anyone But You - is being eyed to play an undisclosed role. There are a number of characters from the book she could play, but we'd say Ben's hostage, Amelia Williams, is the most likely possibility.
Sweeney is fast-becoming one of the most sought-after young actors in Hollywood after starring in the likes of Anyone But You and Immaculate, and is also set to play the title role in another upcoming Edgar Wright sci-fi re-adaptation, Barbarella.
Of course, Sweeney also played Julia Cornwall/Spider-Woman in Sony Pictures' Madame Web, but is highly unlikely to reprise the role after the movie's box office performance (she is rumoured to be in line to play another character in the MCU).
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."