Stephen King is one of the best-selling authors in history with over 400 million books sold. Nearly every major work has been adapted for film or TV. He’s achieved sustained success across five decades, which is extraordinarily rare. For decades, critics dismissed him as a “genre writer” producing commercial horror rather than “serious literature.” But that is changing and he has won the National Book Foundation’s Medal (2003), won Bram Stoker Awards, World Fantasy Awards, and the O. Henry Award. Fellow writers like Margaret Atwood and John Irving have long defended his literary merit and there is increasing academic study of his work. He was born in 1947, in Portland, Maine. His father abandoned the family when King was two, and his mother raised him and his brother under difficult financial circumstances. His first novel, Carrie (1974), and who can forget Sissy Spacek covered in pig blood at her prom. He is still writing prolifically at 77, and he’s politically outspoken on social media and remains one of the best-selling authors alive.
One arena where he has written many novels, that have almost all subsequently been turned into successful movies, is in the realm of dystopia. It is one of my favorite themes in movies for some reason. Dystopia is an imagined society characterized by oppressive control, suffering, and injustice, essentially the opposite of utopia (an ideal society). It is characterized by totalitarian or authoritarian rule, often through surveillance, propaganda, and violence. Citizens have limited freedoms. There are extreme inequalities, rigid class systems, or caste divisions where most people suffer while elites prosper. There is polluted air/water, resource scarcity, climate collapse, or post-apocalyptic wastelands. People reduced to numbers, functions, or commodities. Individual identity suppressed in favor of conformity. They are restricted in their movement, suffer from controlled information, are banned from reading “seditious” books, subject to censorship, and punished for dissent. The genre began with Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World, two of my all time favorite high school books. Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which became Bladerunner in the movies and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, all played to this dystopic theme. Dystopias matter because its a warning. Writers extrapolate current trends to show where society might head if unchecked. The word comes from Greek: *dys* (bad) + *topos* (place) = “bad place.” Dystopias often feel uncomfortably plausible, which is what makes them effective and disturbing.
Stephen King’s great dystopian novels were The Stand , The Long Walk, Roadwork, Under the Dome, The Institute, Cell, Rage, Firestarter, The Dead Zone and The Running Man. Today, Kim had errands to run, so I went to see the latest incarnation of The Running Man. King wrote theme novel in 1982, and in 1987 it was made into a film starting Arnold Schwarzenegger. The story is a lot like The Hunger Games, Snowpiercer, Ready Player One or Elysium in that its about a man trying to save his family from the ravages of a class underprivileged existence.
I think I like the dystopian genre for several reasons. To be most crass in my self-evaluation, I would say that I like end-of-the-world scenarios because I find imagining what it would be like to be one of the last people on earth to be very interesting (as sordid as that seems). But I suspect the bigger draw for me is based on my pain and concern about the economic and class struggle the world seems to always find its way to in various cyclical moments…like the one we are in right now.
The Running Man (1987) is set in a dystopian 2019 America where the economy has collapsed and the government maintains control through a violent game show. Don’t you love it when they write a book or make a movie and then you blow through the “1984” moment? It’s even more special when it feels like we are not so very far away from that scenario after all… In this first version, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Ben Richards, a helicopter pilot framed for massacring civilians during a food riot. He’s captured and forced to participate in “The Running Man,” a gladiatorial death sport broadcast on national television where convicted criminals are hunted by professional killers called “Stalkers” (each with theatrical personas and weapons). The show is hosted by the flamboyant Damon Killian (Richard Dawson, former host of the real Family Feud). Contestants run through a gauntlet while Stalkers with names like Buzzsaw, Dynamo, and Fireball try to kill them. If they survive, they win their freedom…though no one ever has. The film explores media manipulation and bread-and-circuses distraction, government propaganda and fabricated news, The entertainment value of violence and wealth disparity (the masses are poor and pacified by the show). King wrote this as a straightforward thriller with social commentary. Richards is clever and resourceful but constantly on the verge of collapse. The desperation feels real… a father willing to die on camera for money to save his child. It’s considered one of King’s “tightest” novels, and one of his most political works. The wealth disparity theme hits harder because it’s environmental… literally the ability to breathe clean air separates rich from poor.
The new 2025 version is similar and stars Glenn Powell as Ben Richards and Josh Brolin as Dan Killian. In the near future (no “1984” date to transgress this time), the United States is ruled by an authoritarian media Network. 95% of the population live in poverty with little access to healthcare, and the Network placates the masses with trashy, violent game shows and reality television. The most popular and most dangerous program is The Running Man, where “runners” can win $1 billion if they survive for 30 days, while the Network’s hunters and ordinary citizens try to find and kill them for a bounty. Interesting side note…the New Dollars have Arnold Schwarzenegger on them. Ben Richards, a blue-collar worker in the slums of Co-Op City (interesting connection to the housing development in the Bronx), is unable to afford flu medicine (note the real-world connection) for his infant daughter. Over his wife’s objections, Ben tries out for and is selected for The Running Man, agreeing to participate when executive producer Dan Killian offers him an advance for his daughter’s medication and a safe home for his family.
As the hunt begins, Ben travels around in disguise, and just barely evades the hunters. The Network alters the reality of the chase and does so to boost ratings, alternating between being antagonistic to Ben and trying to co-opt him. The flip-flopping and the deceit are very reminiscent of our current political landscape. It’s interesting that the story had Ben fleeing north to Canada…something Americans in trouble with the moral turpitude in the U.S. seem to always do…as opposed to the thieves and scoundrels who head south to Mexico… Ultimately, the uncensored truth about The Running Man journey gets leaked to the public by an honest citizen who has seen the light through her interaction with Ben along the way. Ben is finally reunited with his family. The comeuppance for Killian is that as he tries to keep his twenty-year media juggernaut going, the audience hostility heats up to the point where there is a riot at the show opening and the story ends with Ben shooting Killian, an outcome which seems in keeping with the tough-as-nails demeanor of Ben, but seems less than graceful for our ideological hero.
The King of Dystopia writes for thrills, but can’t help himself but add the social commentary. Back in 1982 and still in 1987, this version of a dystopian future was more sci-fi than social commentary, but in 2025 it is simply too close to our reality to be sci-fi…it is now a near-reality TV show at very least.