I saw The Running Man today. You should too.

In the 1970s publishers believed that the public wouldn't accept more than one novel a year from a writer. Stephen King wanted to publish more than that, so he convinced his publisher to release some of his books as "Stephen King" books and some under a pseudonym. The pen name he used was Richard Bachman, and seven books were published under it: Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork, The Running Man, Thinner, The Regulators and Blaze. Thinner was the book that outed Bachman, and the last two were claimed to be "found" manuscripts. King disowned Rage after a real-world school shooting so it won't be turned into a movie. Roadwork, The Regulators and Blaze would be hard to make movies anyone would want to see from. Thinner, The Long Walk and The Running Man have all been filmed - The Running Man twice. I haven't seen Thinner but have seen all three of the others.

Before today, I had read the novel and saw the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger gratuitous-violence flick. When I learned they were making a new one...well, I gotta go to this one too.

The easiest way to describe this film is "they followed the book pretty closely, but added things from the Schwarzenegger movie when they fit within this film's framework." It works, and it works a hell of a lot better than the last Bachman Book, The Long Walk, that was released in theaters this year. The problem with making The Long Walk into a movie is it's essentially unfilmable - it's a group of teenagers talking about the meaning of life while they're walking down a rural road trying not to get shot for slowing down. What they wound up with, while I thought it was a good movie, was kinda like adding gunfire to My Dinner with Andre. On the other hand, The Running Man is the most filmable Bachman Book.