Glen Powell says 'The Running Man' will 'leave you thinking' because of 'timely' story

Glen Powell is offering action with a side of thoughtfulness in “The Running Man.”

The movie, adapted from the Stephen King novel of the same name, takes place in a dystopian future America where Glen’s character, Ben Richards, competes on a game show to earn money for his family, including a sick daughter.

"When you take on a story that is this epic and also, this timely, there's a lot to pull from,” he told HeyUGuys.com. "Ben Richards fighting for his family which I can understand. I'm very close to my family, I'd do anything for them."

The 37-year-old continued, "I also think just the commentary of reality TV sort of the TikTok-ification of our world and how we engage with the news and fact and fiction and all of those things, there's just a lot to play with.”

"Very few action movies leave you thinking and I think this one really does,” he added.

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The “Top Gun: Maverick” star embraced the opportunity to work with director Edgar Wright on the film and believes that viewers will get to see the “Shaun of the Dead” director's "action weapon" in all of its glory.

"Edgar Wright's been one of my favorite directors for as long as I can remember and I don't think you've gotten to see Edgar truly unleash that action weapon fully in a movie,” Glen said.

As a director, Edgar was fascinated with the story – which was previously adapted for the big screen in a movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1987 – after reading it as a teenager and put what he had "visualized" in his mind in the movie.

"When I read it as a teenager, and this is before I'd seen the other adaptation, I just sort of visualized it in my head and the things that I visualized in my head never really went away and they are exactly the same images that are in the movie,” he told the outlet.

“The Running Man” was shot in a host of locations and Edgar admits that this was one of the most "ambitious" elements of the movie.

The “Last Night in Soho” director said, "It was definitely ambitious. Probably the most ambitious side of it, apart from the action, would be just the number of locations because we wanted it to feel like Ben Richards was on an epic journey and as such it was like 165 locations.

"If the film is exhilarating that means it was kind of exhausting to make.”

“The Running Man” is in theaters now.