Glen Powell reboots 'The Running Man'

It is often said Hollywood doesn't produce movie stars anymore, so when someone with a square jaw and loads of charisma like Glen Powell is cast in Arnold Schwarzenegger's role for a reboot of 'The Running Man', people get excited.

But Powell, an unfailingly courteous Texan, who quit the Los Angeles life and moved home to Austin as his fame grew, is having none of it. "I don't find myself to be exceptional," the 37-year-old told AFP. "That era of action stars and movie stars? You can't really compare apples to oranges," Powell said.

His role in the new 'Running Man', out on Friday, is certainly a far cry from the indestructible bluster of Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson's 20th-century action heroes, who were usually soldiers, cops and trained fighters.

Powell's protagonist Ben Richards is an everyman, with no special skills beyond a rugged toughness and a very short fuse. He reluctantly enters a deadly game show in which the entire world is trying to kill him: he needs to survive long enough to win prize money and buy life-saving medicine for his daughter.

The movie sees Powell's hero get bashed and bruised, blown off a bridge, and has him abseiling down the side of a building in only a bath towel to escape from hoodlums. The night before his AFP interview, Powell and director Edgar Wright screened the movie for Schwarzenegger.

Schwarzenegger's response? "Oh, I feel so bad for you... It must have hurt!" Powell recalled. The film hews more closely to the original Stephen King novel than its 1987 big-screen predecessor. "Arnold knows the pain that it takes to do an action movie properly. It was pretty badass to get his blessing."

Eerily, King set his novel in the United States of 2025, a then-futuristic vision of divisive autocrats, deepfake videos, and a health care crisis that drives everyday people to extremes. Was it a stretch for Powell to imagine today's public enjoying mayhem and slaughter, some of it fake and AI-generated, on their screens? "We do live in this TikTok universe," Powell said.

Powell said he is regularly sent deepfake videos by people who have not questioned the veracity or source of the content. "That's a really fun thing that we get to play with in this movie... 'Where do you get the news from, and who is controlling information?'" Powell said.