Spoilers for The Running Man ending ahead. Run as fast as you can if you haven't seen Edgar Wright's latest film yet. There's a "wait, what?" moment at the end of The Running Man, the new dystopian action film starring Glen Powell that makes you question what is and is not real. Given the nature of the game within the film, those are the right questions to be asking. The bait-and-switch that might disorient fans of the book, the 1987 movie, or just general audiences. Heck, even I have some questions as the person tasked with explaining it. But we're going to get through this together.
The Running Man follows Ben Richards, played by Powell, as he semi-reluctantly joins the cast of a game show that puts him in mortal danger for the chance at an unbelievably high prize. He promised his wife and sick daughter that he wouldn't go on the show. But if you ask me, he didn't protest enough. He not-so-secretly wanted to be on the Running Man. Anyway, the next thing Ben knows he's being hunted by an assassin named Evan McCone, played by Lee Pace, as well as a squad other hunters, local law enforcement, and ordinary citizens looking to make a buck by reporting his location. With some help from friends and underground rebels, he manages to survive for a decent amount of time. But does he win the game? And does he survive? Aren't games in dystopian societies like this, uhhhh, MEGA rigged? That's where things get tricky.
Does Ben Richards' plane actually crash into the Network HQ?
No... that's the big lie that twists the ending of the movie. In the final action sequence of the movie, and the season finale of The Running Man, Ben hijacks a plane flown by the hunters and demands they take him to Canada. He knows that they won't kill them unless they have the opportunity to make good television. In fact, the executive producer of the show, Josh Brolin's character Dan Killian, offers him a deal to star in a "spin-off" called Hunter Number Six and replace McCone. When Ben refuses, they air fake footage of him threatening to fly directly into the Network headquarters and take over control of the plane. Missiles are deployed that can, and will, shoot Ben and the vessile right out of the sky.
Everything goes black, as if that's the end of the story and Ben... but wait! There's more. The film then becomes one of Bradley Throckmorton's conspiracy vlogs. The masked activist explains what really happened, and how Ben escaped from a hatch in the cockpit.
Did he, like, win The Running Man?
I guess not! After all that, the official story is that he died in a missile explosion. He still made more than enough money to support himself and his family.
Did the Network/Evan McCone actually kill Ben's wife and daughter?
No! Thank goodness. Sheila and Cathy survive the film. On the plane, Killian shows Ben security footage that makes it seem like McCone and the hunters broke into their home and murdered them. While McCone refuses to confirm outright whether or not he did (doing so would probably violate what little was left of his contract), he does rightfully chide Ben for believing everything that the Network fed him. They both know how easy it is for them to deepfake footage like that. McCone also reveals that he is a former Running Man contestant who took a Network deal to become a hunter and kill rather than be killed. Ben is too angry to care or question reality, though, and kills him anyway. After McCone dies, Ben asks producer Dan Killian if his family is really alive or dead. Killian says it does not matter. In a way, he's right! Just the threat of harming a woman and child was enough to manipulate Ben into doing whatever they wanted.
At the end of the film, we see Sheila and Cathy doing some grocery shopping. When they emerge from the store, Ben is waiting for them in the parking lot. Now, why would a totalitarian government let the family of someone who rebelled against them so profusely to live freely under new identities? Unclear! Maybe the nice security guard assigned to protect them helped get them into some kind of underground witness protection. I'm not asking too many questions about this, because I'm thankful that they survived. They literally didn't ask for any of this.
Do Ben's actions start a revolution?
Kind of? There certainly are angry people across the country who have been rallied by the idea that "Richards Lives" and got one over the Network and the Running Man game. The video that Bradley posts anonymously claims that an anti-Network rebellion took hold after a young woman found the plane's black box that proves Ben Richards does, in fact, live. The way people rallied around Ben in the movie is a nice reminder that even though propaganda and messaging work on some people, plenty remain immune. Ben was a hero despite his abrasive attitude and the Network's brutal villain edit. (To be fair, the Network shot themselves in the foot by airing footage of McCone killing Sheila and Cathy in order to promote the spin-off they wanted to make with Ben reframed as an anti-hero. That's not going to win them any sympathy!)
That said, it was not his intent to start a rebellion. Sure, he had some desire to spill government secrets during his tenure on the show. But he was more interested in winning money than toppling the system. When the game is over, he doesn't appear to have goals beyond killing Dan and reuniting with his wife and daughter. He achieves both goals, but that happens after the next "season" of the game show is supposed to take place. What happened during that hiatus, or even if there is a hiatus, is a little bit of a mystery.
This is very different from how the book ends.
In the book... everyone dies. Sheila and Cathy? Actually murdered. Ben Richards? With nothing left to lose, he absolutely flies that plane into the Network building on purpose and dies by suicide. Yeesh! The 1987 movie starring Arnold Schwartzenegger has a different ending as well. The Running Man was originally set in 2025. Perhaps the actual, IRL 2025 is so bleak that this adaptation needed to have a slightly happier ending with a little bit of hope for the future instead of total annihilation.
