‘The Running Man’s Biggest Stephen King Book Difference Is a Brutal Kardashian Satire

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The movie The Running Man differs significantly from Stephen King’s original book, and includes a subtle critique of the Kardashian family. The film depicts a bleak, futuristic America where nearly everyone watches entertainment on a government-mandated device called “Free-Vee.” This content is provided by the Games Network, the powerful and unsettling company that created The Running Man game. While based on the novel, the 2025 film expands on this world by adding more detail to the television landscape.

As a lifelong Stephen King fan, I always loved The Running Man – it was way ahead of its time when it came out in 1982 under his Richard Bachman name. The 1987 movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger was… okay, but didn’t really capture the book’s vibe. But the new version from Edgar Wright and Glen Powell? Wow. It’s so much closer to the source material, honestly following the book’s plot almost exactly. They did tweak the ending a bit, but a really fun addition is this over-the-top reality TV show within the movie called The Americanos – it’s wonderfully cheesy and adds a lot to the world.

‘The Americanos’ Is a Spoof On ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’


Paramount Pictures

As a big fan of The Running Man, it’s pretty clear to me that the show-within-a-show, “The Americanos,” is a hilarious send-up of Keeping Up With the Kardashians. It ran for years and made that family famous – or infamous, depending on how you look at it. While it’s funny to see that parody on screen, it’s actually a really clever, if a bit harsh, commentary on the whole reality TV phenomenon. It makes you think about what that kind of show really represents, and it’s not exactly flattering to the Kardashians, or anyone else involved in that world.

A key aspect of the society depicted in The Running Man that the film doesn’t fully explore is the lack of access to books for most people. While today we rely on the internet for information, when Stephen King wrote the novel, public libraries were the primary source. Libraries are meant to be publicly funded spaces offering free information, but in the book, they’ve been replaced by a system where only the rich can afford to use them. Instead of libraries, there’s something called Free-Vee.

The film The Running Man suggests that the government might use reality TV as a way to intentionally lower the public’s intelligence, making it simpler to maintain control.

Shows like The Running Man aim to stir up outrage and create conflict, and the film clearly shows this. However, The Americanos seems designed to simply lull viewers into a passive state, making them easily influenced. While it’s well-known that shows like Keeping Up With the Kardashians are mindless entertainment, The Running Man suggests the government might use this type of reality TV intentionally to simplify things for the public, and therefore maintain control.

Stephen King’s novel envisioned a future that feels surprisingly relevant today. We now have constant access to endless, often pointless entertainment – think streaming services. However, even King couldn’t have foreseen the huge popularity and wealth of reality TV stars. This adds a new layer to his story, highlighting how much things have changed while still connecting to the original themes.

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2025-11-16 01:24