7. The Running Man (1987)
I've chosen
The Running Man, but I could've chosen at least half a dozen of other Stephen King movie adaptations that didn't get the screen treatments they deserved. So many of King's novels have been adapted brilliantly, of course - some of which are considered to be some of the best movies ever made, including Shawshank and Stand By Me. But there's a lot of King novels that got shortchanged, and The Running Man was one of them. Partly because it was the '80s and partly because it was shoehorned into being an Arnold Schwarzenegger blood vehicle,
The Running Man skimped out on so many of the things that made the original novella so interesting: King's world is rich and detailed. It's far more
Blade Runner than is depicted the movie version, which decides to take things a little too campy, in my opinion. I mean, take a look at Arnie's spandex suit. It's horrific. Fact is,
The Running Man deserves another chance, because the tight plotting and terrifying concept - a man is relentlessly pursued around a city by murderers as part of a futuristic game show - would make for great modern science-fiction cinema. And everything is right there in King's original novel. Granted, there are about a zillion King adaptations in the works right now, but here's one that could be brilliant in the hands of somebody like Duncan Jones (S
ource Code) or Rian Johnson (
Looper). Or me. I'll do it.