Hi, this is Mark Kermode. Welcome to Kermode on film. This week's episode is something a bit special.

This is an interview that I did on stage at the IMAX premiere of Edgar Wright's The Running Man, the new adaptation of the Stephen King story.

So, sit back and enjoy me and Edgar Wright talking about the running man.

From a story originally set in 2025, in which America is a totalitarian state

ruled over by an evil network that feeds people propaganda and lies.

When did you first decide to do another documentary?

Did you say earlier what the cover of the book actually says?

Go ahead.

So the 1982, like first edition paperback when it was published under Richard Backman's name,

Stephen King's pseudonym, the cover of the book says,

Welcome to the Year 2025, where the best men don't run for president, they run for their lives.

It's genuinely the cover of the book. A little bit on the

nose. Your version of the film is much closer to the Stephen King story than a previous

screen incarnation. And I saw a photograph of you with Stephen King. Now, I have never met

Steve. I did my PhD in horror fiction. I've never met Stephen King.

Tell me about you and Stephen King. How did you meet? How involved was he? Tell me.

I mean, I had the first contact I ever had with him, well, he gave us a press quote for Sean of the Dead,

which he loved. Which was amazing and sort of blew my mind as somebody who started reading Steam King books at age 12.

And then more recently we'd sort of started actually emailing each other and mostly about music.

It sort of turned into a tradition of he's a big rock fan.

Loves the Ramones.

Yeah.

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