Before Glen Powell felt comfortable racing onto Edgar Wright’s The Running Man, he made sure to get the approval from the star of the 1987 film — Arnold Schwarzenegger.
As a good friend of The Terminator’s son, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Powell enlisted the help of The White Lotus season three actor to make sure his father was on board with him starring in the 2025 remake based on Stephen King’s 1982 novel.
“Arnold gave us his blessing,” Powell said during a Thursday interview with People. “Patrick Schwarzenegger is a great friend of mine and I asked Patrick if I could talk to Arnold.”
The two actors shared the silver screen together back in 2014 when Powell joined the cast of the third Expendables film. Powell explained that he wanted to hop on a call with Schwarzenegger because they “hadn’t seen” each other since they shot The Expendables 3 over a decade ago.
Nonetheless, he gave Powell his “full blessing” to partake in the new Running Man film. To commemorate his involvement with the franchise, Powell seemingly teased that he had a “very specific gift” for Schwarzenegger in the works.
“Arnold gave us his full blessing and we get to give Arnold a very specific, fun gift from the movie in a couple of weeks here,” he said. “So I’m very excited to see him.”
Powell and Wright promoted the Nov. 7 release of their Running Man revival at CinemaCon on Thursday. They were joined by fellow stars Josh Brolin and Colman Domingo, where some of the first footage from the movie was revealed.
While Wright’s film is based on King’s novel released under his pseudonym Richard Bachman, the story will differ from the reiteration Schwarzenegger starred in nearly 40 years ago. The story is set in a totalitarian society that utilizes deadly game shows for punishment. In Wright’s version, Powell’s character, Ben Richards, joins a television show where contestants must outrun killers in order to earn money for his sick daughter.
Alongside Powell, Brolin and Domingo, William H. Macy, Lee Pace, Emilia Jones, Michael Cera, Daniel Ezra and Jayme Lawson join the cast. Wright, Simon Kinberg and Nira Park produced, while George Linder, James Biddle, Rachael Prior and Audrey Chon executive produced.
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