Glen Powell says Paramount’s marketing upheaval hurt The Running Man, with the actor pointing to an entire department being cut just one month before its release. The Edgar Wright-directed film ultimately made around $69 million worldwide against a reported $110 million production budget. For Powell, the result became another chapter in a run of ambitious projects that have not always translated into the theatrical momentum expected of him.

There is a particular irony to Powell’s recent career trajectory: the actor has become one of Hollywood’s most reliable leading men at precisely the moment when the machinery around theatrical movies has become less predictable. The Running Man exposed how much a star vehicle can depend on the machine behind it.

In an interview with Esquire, Glen Powell directly connected The Running Man’s troubled release to the upheaval at Paramount.

“They let go of an entire marketing department a month before our movie came out in the middle of a merger…There just was not enough time to do it properly,” he said.

In the same Esquire interview, Powell made clear that the timing mattered, particularly because the film was arriving as Paramount was undergoing major corporate changes following the Skydance merger. The comments suggest a broader frustration with the pace at which projects can be pushed through Hollywood’s pipeline, especially when a performer’s slate is already packed.

Edgar Wright brought his kinetic visual grammar to Stephen King’s dystopian story, while Powell stepped into the role previously associated with Arnold Schwarzenegger. It had the ingredients of a muscular adult action movie, yet the theatrical marketplace gave it little room to breathe.

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The Schwarzenegger connection made The Running Man an especially intriguing proposition in the first place. Powell was taking over a part made famous by one of the genre’s defining stars while Edgar Wright was reworking Stephen King’s darker original story. That combination gave the film genuine franchise-level appeal, which makes what happened around its release even more notable. 

Paramount’s corporate transition provides important context for Glen Powell’s complaint. The Skydance-Paramount merger was announced in 2024 and completed in August 2025, only a few months before The Running Man reached theaters on November 14, 2025. Powell’s account indicates that the restructuring reached directly into the marketing operation responsible for selling the movie to audiences.

The film also entered an unusually crowded holiday corridor. The Running Man opened behind Now You See Me: Now You Don’t and was subsequently squeezed by releases including Wicked: For Good, Zootopia 2 and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. Its reported $69 million worldwide haul against a roughly $110 million budget therefore became more than a simple case of an expensive movie missing expectations. It was a reminder that even a recognizable star, a major director and a Stephen King property cannot overcome every piece of theatrical math.

For Powell, The Running Man may ultimately be remembered less as a career stumble than as a costly lesson in how much can happen around a movie before audiences ever get the chance to see it.

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What do you think about Glen Powell’s comments on Paramount’s marketing shake-up and The Running Man? Share your thoughts in the comments.