Warning! Spoilers ahead for The Running Man.You probably couldn’t end a studio movie the way Stephen King’s novel version of The Running Man ends. It’s a bleak ending for a bleak novel: the protagonist flies a plane into the headquarters of the totalitarian megacorp, The Network, slaughtering hundreds, including himself and the ruthless executive who made his life hell.Needless to say, Edgar Wright’s new adaptation of The Running Man doesn’t end that way. But it comes close. In a twisty ending that plays with the audience’s perception of truth and fiction, The Running Man delivers an ending that is both loyal to King’s original novel, and is also much, much more optimistic. But regardless of how King fans will feel about this new ending, Wright assures Inverse that the author gave it his blessing.The Running Man Ending ExplainedBen and Amelia are brought on board the jet plane. | Paramount PicturesAs Ben Richards (Glen Powell) nears the end of two weeks surviving The Running Man, he knows that his time is running out. No contestant has lasted the full 30 days required to win the show, because — as rebel and mega-fan Bradley Throckmorton (Daniel Ezra) told him — the Network rigs it that way. By the end of two weeks, ratings for the show will have peaked, and the Hunters will have finished playing with the final surviving contestant and will put them out of their misery. But Ben has something else on his side that previous contestants haven’t: public support. As Bradley and fellow rebel Elton (Michael Cera) have worked to keep him alive, they’ve also planted the seeds for a revolution. Across the country, the poor are cheering, “Richards Lives!” Ben just needs to be the spark that will light the fuse.So after his last narrow escape with the Hunters that ended with Elton getting shot in the head, Ben carjacks Amelia Williams (Emilia Jones), a wealthy civilian who thinks The Running Man is fake. She gets a rude awakening when she sees the Network creating deepfake footage of her screaming for help as Ben’s hostage, and witnesses traffic barricades lifted so that Ben can be brought on board a plane where the Network is setting up Ben’s bloody showdown with lead Hunter Evan McCone (Lee Pace). On board the plane, Ben tries to threaten his way to success with enough explosives to level a small town, but is called on his bluff by Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) who calls into applaud Ben for his great performance. He also has an offer for Ben: Murder the remaining Hunters on board the plane, and he can be the star of the next great Network show, Hunter 6. Killian reveals that the Hunters, enraged after Ben had slain one of them, had murdered his wife and child, and he has footage to prove it. Take revenge, Killian says, and all of America will be rooting for him.McCone gets unmasked, literally and figuratively, in the third-act twist. | Paramount PicturesAnd a heartbroken Ben does, laying siege to the Hunters manning the plane before hunting down McCone. But during their fierce fight, McCone reveals that he was in fact the survivor of the first season of The Running Man, and was offered the same deal as Ben. He mocks Ben for believing Killian about his wife and child, but Ben deals the finishing blow anyway. Bleeding from the gut, Ben sends Amelia out of the plane in a parachute, carrying the pamphlets that Elton made, before he sits in the cockpit to make his final message to the show, live on air. “Turn off the Free-Vee,” he pleads, before Killian interrupts him: None of what he said made it to air. If Ben doesn’t accept their offer, they will air false footage of Ben angrily flying the plane into the Network towers before a missile shoots him down. Ben refuses one last time, and it all ends in one fatal explosion... or does it?Suddenly, the frame freezes and Bradley’s Apostle walks onscreen, revealing this last bit of footage to be a replay from his illicit TV show, breaking down every episode of The Running Man. He believes Ben Richards is still alive, pointing out the show’s early cut to commercials and use of old audience footage. But most importantly, he points to a piece of debris flying out from the explosion that looks suspiciously like an escape pod from the plane. While “The Apostle” segment ends without certainty of whether Ben Richards is alive or dead, even though the revolution he started is very much alive.Sheila (Jayme Lawson) lives in the movie’s ending. | Paramount PicturesAnd soon, we learn the truth: We cut to Sheila grocery shopping with her daughter, where she spots a hooded man standing in front of “Richards Lives!” graffiti. After they embrace, we cut to The Running Man about to air a new show, before host Bobby T (Colman Domingo), forcing Killian to take the stage. But he’s soon overpowered by a rowdy crowd sporting “Richards Lives!” signs, along with Ben Richards himself, approaching Killian with a gun to his head. He counts down... and the movie ends.Stephen King’s Sign-OffDan Killian and Bobby T see the crowd shift in The Running Man. | Paramount PicturesSo how did Stephen King react to the new ending of The Running Man? Very positively, Edgar Wright reveals.“Stephen King has to sign off on the adaptation,” Wright tells Inverse. “And knowing that he had reservations about the previous movie because it was so wildly different is nerve-wracking when you hand in your script to Stephen King. But he really liked the adaptation and he really liked what we'd done with the ending.”Wright reveals that this ending was “pretty much the same as it is in the first draft” that he and co-writer Michael Bacall wrote. It “didn't really change much after that,” he says.The Running Man is playing in theaters now.