Stephen King was angry writing 'Running Man.' Why he's 'not that guy anymore'

Spoiler alert! The following post discusses the ending of "The Running Man" so beware if you haven't seen it yet.

They might be the same guy, but Stephen King was a different writer than Richard Bachman.

In King’s early years, the legendary author used the Bachman pseudonym – equally inspired by Richard Stark and Bachman Turner Overdrive – to release extra novels beyond the publishing-standard one a year of the time and not dilute his brand. Over his career, King wrote seven total with the pen name, two of which have been adapted as high-profile movies this year.

Directed by Francis Lawrence, “The Long Walk” (available via video-on-demand platforms) is based on the 1979 Bachman dystopian thriller about young men forced to walk or die under an authoritarian government. “The Running Man” (in theaters now), an adaptation of the 1982 sci-fi novel directed by Edgar Wright, imagines a future ruled by TV game shows and follows a desperate unemployed dad competing on the deadliest of them.

King sees a definite difference between the writer who penned the Bachman books – which also include “Rage” (1977), “Roadwork” (1981), “Thinner (1984), “The Regulators” (1996) and “Blaze” (2007) – and his other works. “A lot of the early books, particularly the Bachman books, were angry books,” King says. “Long Walk,” for example, “was an angry book written by a stereotypical angry young man. And now I'm an old guy who's had the s--- beaten out of him, more or less."

That anger inherent in the “Running Man” novel is seen in Glen Powell’s performance as Ben Richards, who competes in “The Running Man” game show to provide for his sick daughter. If he can last 30 days and avoid being killed by assassins, Richards gets $1 billion.

“I bet he really enjoyed getting that part of him on screen,” King says of Powell. “It’s interesting to see that anger channeled for a new generation, because I'm not that guy anymore. I still have some antisocial characteristics, but I'm not angry the way that I was.”

'The Running Man' book origins tie to a nasty snowstorm

King started writing “The Long Walk” as a college freshman at the University of Maine in the late 1960s. “There was this girl that I was crazy about, and I gave it to her by chapters,” he says. “The Running Man,” on the other hand, was written during one week in 1973 when King was a schoolteacher snowed in with his family. 

“Game shows had become increasingly predatory, and back then, the only thing that I thought this could be built on was big-time (pro) wrestling, where it just seemed like it was fake but also very violent,” King says. 

Wright says King’s original tome was prescient in “talking about the media and the idea of the corporations kind of owning the government.” The director also found it amazing, especially given when King wrote the book, that he so well captured “all of the backstage drama and politics of the TV show. Everything about the assessment process, and also just the manipulation of the media and the manipulation of the narrative on the show ... all stuff that's been confirmed by the last 25 years of reality TV. It was really nice to work on the adaptation with the knowledge of everything that's come since.”

What happens in the ending of the new ‘The Running Man’? (Spoilers!)

The climax of the new movie does switch up King’s original ending. In the book, Ben Richards flies a plane into the corporate Games Building, killing himself and villainous TV producer Dan Killian. “The explosion was tremendous, lighting up the night like the wrath of God, and it rained fire twenty blocks away,” King writes in the book’s last line.

In the movie, while on the plane Richards – who now has become an audience hero – tries to tell people to turn off their TVs but instead viewers see the network’s faked version of Richards warning that he’s going to crash the jet into the building. The plane is shot down and Richards is reported dead. However, people see how Killian (Josh Brolin) and the network have been manipulating everyone, which leads to an audience revolt during the next season premiere, and from the crowd Richards reveals himself as being very much alive, shooting Killian before the credits roll.

King digs the new ending: “People who have read the book and see the movie have a special treat because they can have it both ways.”