Lee Pace, who memorably played the villain Ronan in Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxyis back in villain mode.

The actor has signed a deal to join Glen Powell, Josh Brolin and Katy O’BrianLove lies bleeding) in The running manParamount’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel.

Edgar Wright directs the feature and co-wrote the script with Michael Bacall. Production will take place in London early next year.

King Walking manpublished in 1982 and written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, is set in 2025 in an America under a totalitarian regime that uses violent game shows to appease the disenfranchised masses.

The novel focused on a desperate man, who needed money for his sick daughter, who competes on the most popular show, The running manin which teams of killers hunt participants. The longer a participant survives, the more money that person makes. But as the game show’s producers and killers will discover, this desperate man will break all the rules and expose the show’s dark secrets.

Powell plays that desperate man. Brolin stars as the game show’s ruthless producer, while O’Brian will play one of the show’s contestants.

Pace is essentially the center of gravity of the film, playing the brutal lead hunter for the network that airs the game shows and is assigned by the producer to track down Powell’s character.

Paramount will release the film on November 21, 2025. Simon Kinberg, Nira Park and Wright are producing.

Pace portrayed the colorful Marvel villain Ronan the Accuser in 2014 Guards and reprized the role for the billion-dollar win in 2019 Captain Marvel. The actor starred in AMC’s mid-2010s drama Stop and catch fire and more recently, he was one of the stars of Apple TV’s ambitious science fiction series Foundationwhich is entering its third season.

He is repped by WME and Peikoff Mahan Law.