Thescreescore – Glen Powell, a rising star known for his charismatic screen presence, recently offered a revealing perspective on the financial trajectory of his 2025 Stephen King adaptation, The Running Man. Directed by the acclaimed Edgar Wright, this cinematic endeavor, a re-imagining of King’s dystopian novel previously brought to screen in 1987 with Arnold Schwarzenegger, saw Powell in the lead as Ben Richards, a down-on-his-luck individual forced into a deadly, televised game of survival. Despite a reported production budget soaring to an estimated $110 million, the film tragically faltered at the global box office, recouping a mere $69 million, marking it as a significant commercial misstep in the year’s film slate.
In a candid conversation with Esquire, Powell attributed a major contributing factor to this financial shortfall to internal corporate upheaval at Paramount Pictures, the film’s distributor. He detailed how "an entire marketing department" was disbanded just a month prior to The Running Man‘s theatrical debut, a direct consequence of the Skydance Media and Paramount Global merger. This pivotal corporate consolidation, announced in July 2024 and finalized in August 2025, occurred mere months before the film’s November 14, 2025, premiere, leaving its promotional campaign severely compromised during a critical period.
While Powell highlights the marketing disruption, a comprehensive analysis of the film’s underperformance reveals a confluence of other elements. Critical reception for The Running Man was lukewarm, reflected in its "just-barely Fresh" 61% score on Rotten Tomatoes. However, audience sentiment, as indicated by a respectable B+ CinemaScore, suggested a more favorable view from general moviegoers, hinting at a disconnect between critical and popular opinion. Crucially, the film also faced formidable competition in a crowded theatrical landscape, launching squarely into the competitive 2025 holiday season.
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Its opening weekend saw it overshadowed by the fellow new release Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, which claimed the top spot while The Running Man debuted at number two. The film struggled to maintain traction, holding a position within the domestic Top 5 for only three weekends before plummeting to twelfth place. Subsequent weeks introduced other major releases like Wicked: For Good, Zootopia 2, and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, further eroding its box office potential and limiting its theatrical longevity.
Despite this setback and the subsequent underperformance of his 2026 film, How to Make a Killing, Powell’s trajectory towards box office redemption appears promising. Earlier this year, he lent his voice to the character of Fox McCloud in the animated blockbuster The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, a film that soared past the billion-dollar mark globally, demonstrating his appeal in a different genre.
Looking ahead, Powell is slated for pivotal roles in several high-profile projects poised for greater commercial success. These include The Comeback King, a comedy he co-wrote with director Judd Apatow, and the highly anticipated sci-fi epic The Great Beyond, penned and helmed by J. J. Abrams, co-starring Jenna Ortega and Samuel L. Jackson. These projects carry significant franchise potential and established creative teams, suggesting a more robust market presence.
However, the very corporate instability Powell cited as detrimental to The Running Man could cast a shadow over his future endeavors. Paramount Skydance recently finalized another monumental merger, this time with Warner Bros. Discovery. This latest industry shake-up raises concerns about the marketing and distribution strategies for a slate of upcoming films from both studios, including Focker-in-Law, The Angry Birds Movie 3, Crawl 2, A Quiet Place Part III, Godzilla x Kong: Supernova, and The Conjuring: First Communion. Significantly, The Great Beyond, a Warner Bros. production set for an October 2027 release, now finds itself within this newly merged entity, potentially adding an unforeseen layer of uncertainty to Powell’s otherwise bright prospects, as studios navigate these complex transitions.
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