The Running Man 2025 becomes Stephen King's highest-grossing film this year despite the recovery battle

The Running Man has turned into a late-2025 box office story, and it did it the hard way. Edgar Wright’s new take on Stephen King’s dystopian chase thriller opened to loud “underperformed” chatter, then steadied through the holiday corridor with better legs than the first-week narrative suggested.

Glen Powell leads the reboot as Ben Richards, opposite Josh Brolin, Colman Domingo, William H. Macy, and Emilia Jones, in a version that leans closer to King’s original premise from The Running Man and The Bachman Books.

The other driver is the “recovery battle” behind the scenes, too, with the movie racing through post-strike timing pressures while Powell handled a stunt-heavy shoot. Add King’s unusually warm approval of Wright as the right filmmaker for the job, and The Running Man has stayed in the conversation longer than its opening implied.

The Running Man’s 2025 box office run, and where it ranks among Stephen King adaptations this year

The Running Man has grossed $66,263,567 worldwide so far, with $37,063,567 domestic and $29,200,000 international, per Box Office Mojo’s running totals. That total is notable because the opening did not look like a clean win. Box Office Mojo lists a $16,495,564 domestic opening weekend from 3,534 theaters.

Associated Press also reported the early worldwide debut at about $28.2 million, while noting a $110 million budget and mixed early reviews. In other words, The Running Man started life as a “big swing, uneasy landing” release.

Where the “recovery” shows up is in the weeks after, when it did not fall off a cliff. The Numbers currently lists a 2.25x multiplier off the opening weekend, which signals steadier legs than the first-week discourse suggested. On the reception side, Rotten Tomatoes currently shows a 64% critics score and a 78% audience score, while AP’s opening-weekend reporting cited a B+ CinemaScore and PostTrak indicators that were more positive than the critic split.

As for the “highest-grossing” angle, Box Office Mojo’s 2025 worldwide totals for major King adaptations put The Monkey slightly ahead at $68,871,071, with The Running Man next at $66,263,567, and The Long Walk at $62,871,590. So the accurate takeaway is that The Running Man has become one of 2025’s top-grossing Stephen King films, and it is within striking distance of the year’s leader on that tracker.

Critics also landed in the “mixed but watchable” zone that can still support decent legs in a crowded season. As per The Guardian report dated November 11, 2025, critic Peter Bradshaw wrote,

“The resulting film is never anything but likable and fun – though never actually disturbing in the way that it’s surely supposed to be and the ending is fudged and anticlimactic.”

That kind of middle-positive framing often plays better once the hype cycle cools down and casual audiences find the movie on their own schedule.

What Stephen King said about Edgar Wright’s version, and why his approval mattered?

King’s approval became part of the narrative because he is famously direct about adaptations, for better or worse. This year was also stacked with new screen versions of his work, including The Monkey, The Long Walk, and series like The Institute, which made the “King pick” conversation louder than usual. In his long conversation with Wright for Sight and Sound, King framed the timing as a real full-circle moment. As per the BFI report dated November 7, 2025, Stephen King said,

“I just thought to myself, when I wrote the book 2025 just seemed so far in the future that I couldn’t even grasp it in my mind.”

That detail matters because this release is landing inside the year the story was once treated like sci-fi distance, and Wright chose not to date the movie on-screen for that reason. King also gave Wright unusually direct praise, which helped reset the “remake fatigue” skepticism. As per the BFI report dated November 7, 2025, Stephen King said,

“Sometimes you just ride with an angel, so to speak. And my angel was Edgar Wright. I mean, obviously, we live in a reality-based world, and so many things are gameshows now, even politics. They’re already talking about 2026, and the elections, and that’s part of the game. It’s all part of a competition.”

The subtext is clear. This is not being framed as a nostalgia rerun of the 1987 film. It is being sold as a filmmaker-led adaptation that finally uses more of the book’s engine, including its media-manipulation hooks.

Glen Powell’s recovery battle, and how the production sprint shaped the finished film

The “recovery battle” here has two lanes. One is public and box-office facing, where The Running Man had to outlast the early underperformance talk and find a steadier footing week to week. The other is production-facing, where the movie had to clear real-world constraints and still deliver a big, physical crowd-pleaser.

On the schedule side, TheWrap reported the film “survived twin strikes” and worked through a “truncated post-production schedule,” while also needing the author’s approvals, which compresses timelines in ways audiences never see.

On the physical side, Powell has been candid about how aggressive the shoot was. As per the People report dated October 19, 2025, Glen Powell said,

“Edgar asked me to do [a] towel scene in the summertime. We shot that in February in Bulgaria....We become friends really fast”

That is a small detail that sells the larger point. The Running Man asked for real discomfort, real weather, and real stunt rhythm, not just green-screen toughness. Wright has described the scale as controlled chaos on set. As per the People report dated November 12, 2025, Edgar Wright said,

“They’re all like hurling abuse at Glen, who is handcuffed,...It felt sort of kind of out of control in the best way.”

Put together, the headline-friendly version is this: The Running Man recovered in public, and it was built under pressure in private. That combination is why it is ending 2025 as one of the year’s biggest Stephen King theatrical titles.

Stay tuned for more updates.