The Running Man (film)/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Actor Allusion:
    • Just before he's launched into the Zone, Richards promises that "I'll be back." To say nothing of Richard Dawson's role as a game show host.
    • Sub Zero is inexplicably introduced as a professor, just like his actor.
    • Killian refers to Fireball as the "number one rusher"; Jim Brown, who played Fireball, was the running back for the Cleveland Browns, and once held the record for the most career rushing yards. Fireball also yells "Win one for the Zero", a play on the famous Knute Rockne, All American not-quote, "Win one for the Gipper."
  • The Cast Showoff: When Dynamo (Erland van Lidth) sings the aria from Act III of The Marriage of Figaro, he's actually singing in that scene. Presumably after he got cast, someone found out he could sing opera and decided they had to throw that in somewhere.
  • Completely Different Title:
    • The Survivor (Mexico/Venezuela/Brazil)
    • The Invincible (Greece)
    • Refugee (Poland)
    • Racer (Serbia)
    • Final Chance (Denmark)
    • The Gladiator (Portugal)
    • Battle Runner (Japan)
    • L'implacabile (Italy)
    • Juokse tai kuole (Finland - English: Run or Die)
  • Defictionalization: The technology used to frame Richards by digitally swapping his face with that of the real killer is now completely real.
    • Likewise, while the computer graphics technology to simulate all the other fake footage entirely from scratch is still rather expensive, the software and technical skill necessary to do so are all available to Hollywood and anyone else who can afford them.
      • Also a case of Technology Marches On: Many of Richards' "escape" methods wouldn't happen today, in a world of cell phone cameras and GPS. And much of the technology in the movie seems to consist of blinking lights.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: Frances' butler, Grossberger, and Jim Brown all play Stalkers.
  • Technology Marches On: Most notable with the "tapes" which are shown to be in containers about the size of 3.5" floppy disks. Ironically, these are actually much larger than some of the Micro-SD cards we have right now which can easily store an entire DVD image containing both sides of this movie's double-sided DVD (containing both a full-screen and wide-screen version of the movie, and lots of extras). Some of those cards even have enough storage space that they could easily fit an uncompressed version of this movie a dozen times over, never mind the few minutes of digital footage from Richards' last mission these "tapes" contained.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Dolph Lundgren and Christopher Reeve were both considered for the role of Ben Richards. Can you imagine Ivan Drago or Clark Kent taking a chainsaw to a guy's genitals?
      • The Running Man starring Christopher Reeve probably would have been a little more faithful to the novel than the version featuring Arnold.
    • Andrew Davis was originally going to direct the film (after three previous directors pulled out) but was fired a week into production due to going over-budget and being four days behind schedule. Paul Michael Glaser (Starsky from Starsky and Hutch) finished the film.
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