NOWHERE TO HIDE
Edgar Wright’s 2025 The Running Man remakes the Schwarzenegger classic, embracing Stephen King’s darker vision with DP Chung-hoon Chung ASC’s rich cinematography, digital innovation and high-stakes dystopian action.
In late 2025, The Running Man raced back to screens, reimagining Stephen King’s 1982 novel, written under the nom de plume Richard Bachman, for a modern audience. Staying closer to the book’s darker, socially conscious vision than the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger adaptation, the dystopian action thriller explores a near-future United States dominated by the authoritarian media conglomerate, the Network. To distract and control a suffering population, the Network airs brutal game shows, the most notorious being The Running Man, in which contestants, or “runners,” compete for life-changing prizes while evading deadly hunters and a complicit public.
Directed by Edgar Wright and shot digitally for the first time in his career, the film stars Glen Powell as Ben Richards, a blacklisted labourer thrust into the deadly game – and Josh Brolin as Dan Killian, the show’s ruthless producer. Wright teamed-up again with acclaimed South Korean cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung ASC (Wonka – they worked together on Last Night in Soho (2021) – to craft a different visual style to the earlier motion picture, reimagining the high-stakes survival story with tension, spectacle and contemporary political edge.
“I like the older Running Man film – I prefer to call it the first film as opposed to the original – but I felt this was a totally different movie,” Chung says. “This one follows the Stephen King (an executive producer on the film) original story much more. I watched the older version a long time ago, but I didn’t want to mimic anything or make it feel like a part two. I didn’t want the images mixing in my brain. I focused on Edgar’s interpretation instead.”
To that end, the film was primarily shot on the ARRI Alexa 35. “Normally I shoot on film as well, but because we had so many different sources — movie cameras, TV-style cameras, drone POVs, broadcast material — digital felt like the better option. It wasn’t really a budget consideration; it was more about handling the mix of formats we needed. I’m very familiar with the Alexa line and the 35 has incredible, low-light performance. I thought I might be able to give it a slightly more analogue feel, which is why I chose that camera.”
Alongside Alexa 35 for the main unit, Chung and the team used DJI Osmo Pocket 3 for the TV-style shots, Sony FX3 for the drone camera and other Sony FX-series studio cameras.
Yet, with such abundant resources at his disposal, the production might have seemed straightforward for Chung—but it was far more complex.
“Sometimes choosing which one to use for each moment was tricky,” he adds. “After editing, the director can always change his mind, so I wanted to make sure every camera gave the best quality possible, just in case. It was a bit of a gamble mixing so many systems, but the priority was keeping a consistent look.”
For the film’s lensing, Chung employed the Apollo Xelmus Anamorphic lenses he had used on Wonka, alongside a mix of Hawk 74 Vintage Anamorphics, MiniHawk hybrids, Class-X, and spherical ARRI Ultra Primes — five lens sets in total, shared with the second unit. While the Apollos were used selectively for shots requiring their strong close-focus ability, the primary lenses for the film were the Hawk 74 Vintage series.
Speed of light
Given the film’s mix of TV-style shots, a televised, interactive and complicit audience and scenes on the streets of Glasgow (standing in for New York City) Chung opted for a variety of lighting setups.
“We used a lot of LED lights on this production,” he says. “I’m not a huge fan of sticking to one manufacturer — if I like it, I use it; if I don’t, I don’t. We used Creamsource Vortex 8, Nanlux… it was a mixture of everything.” Indeed, this included, for the TRM stage show, Ayrton Dominos and Khamsins, Robe iFortes with Robo-Spot controllers and Magic Blades, Claypaky K-25 B-eyes, Astera AX9s, Prolights ECL panels and Lumipix Bars, and GLP Impression Bars. For the stages and shooting packages, the team added Rosco DMG Dashes, Fillex Q and G Series Lamps, Creamsource Vortexes, Astera Titans Helios tubes and Luna bulbs, ARRI SkyPanels, Aputure Infinibars, Aladdin 4×1 and mini panels, LiteGear Spectrums, Nanlux Evoke series, Nanlite 60CRs, and Light Synthesis 5600K Luxor. On the tungsten side, Par Cans, 20kW Fresnels, and EMP Eye-lights for practicals were also used throughout the production.
Challenge behind the camera
For Chung, some of the most challenging parts of making the film “were the mix-and-match moments” between cameras and lenses. “Choosing which lens set for which beat was always a little gamble,” not to mention the schedule and the fact that the team was shooting in a Scottish winter.
“Glasgow in winter is cold, wet and uncomfortable.” he recalls. “It rains at night and snows at the end of the day. But visually, the place is amazing. Very cinematic — the alleys, the blue cast of the city, the atmosphere. Some streets felt exactly like The Running Man. And they also wanted the city to resemble parts of the US, even New York. Glasgow worked well for that, and traffic control is much easier there than in London.”
The exterior and alleyway scenes of Boston’s YVA Hotel were shot on the back lot at Nu Boyana Studios in Sofia. The sequence in which Ben meets Amelia and heads to the airport, including the runway scenes, was filmed there as well. Bulgaria also served as the location for the exterior of Elton’s house, the buggy-driving shots, the bridge sequence where Elton dies, the Derry sequence, railroad locations, and most exterior scenes requiring road closures.
The shoot ran from November 2024 through February 2025 in the UK, with an additional month of filming in March 2025 in Sofia, Bulgaria.
“This film felt like all the genres I’d shot before combined together,” Chung adds. “I’ve shot very dark noir films, I’ve shot comedies and every genre in between. This one felt like everything mixed into one. Edgar’s energy is incredibly high — he makes the crew work hard, but in a good way. You always want to give him something great. Every second you have to pay attention. That’s why we want to work with Edgar again.”
Multiple cameras and VFX
Such was the enormity of the production, the team “normally had two cameras rolling, sometimes three or four” and Chung tried to keep the A-camera following the director’s storyboards — not 100%, but mostly.
“I operated B-camera myself so I could pick out special moments,” Chung says. “After that, we always returned to the storyboard in the edit. Sometimes we’d decide on set that we only needed one camera, or that something could be changed. Edgar’s storyboards are very detailed, but because we already know each other from our previous film, we could adjust the plan easily. He knows how to use me and I know how to support him.”
The film leans on VFX, this time handled by ILM.
“I always want good communication with other departments,” he adds. “The VFX supervisor Andrew Whitehurst stayed with me all day. We would constantly discuss whether to solve something in camera or let graphics help. Sometimes VFX could save time; sometimes in-camera was the better choice. We made decisions minute by minute.”
The production also made extensive use of both bluescreen and greenscreen to achieve its visual effects.
“Which one we used at any given moment depended on the reflections,” Chung adds. “If green was too close and hitting the actors’ faces, we switched to blue. But big screens were mostly green. We tried to control spill carefully. The special effects were done by Stephen Warnock — he was great.”
Working abroad
Chung has been living in Los Angeles with his family since making the 2016 South Korean erotic historical psychological thriller The Handmaiden, but he is keen to make more films in the UK because he likes the way things work there.
“European productions feel very close to Korean productions,” he says, “The structure is similar. The main difference is language. English isn’t my language, but it’s getting better. The American system is a bit different. In Korea now we have two systems — the DP system and the camera-and-lighting-director system — so it’s somewhere between the European and American models. But overall, Europe feels comfortable for me. The crews are very similar to Korea. This is my third movie in the UK — Last Night in Soho, Wonka, and this one. I already miss my UK crew. It was a hard schedule, hard work every day, but they made everything feel easier for me. I love UK crews. They understand my jokes, they care about me. It feels like home, like family and friends. Carlos de Carvalho, our second-unit DP, was incredibly helpful on this shoot. And I feel truly lucky to have worked with camera operator Chris Bain, gaffer Nate Bauer, and key grip Elliott Polley — it was a real privilege for me.”
