Racing to find the right running-based Z-grade thriller for you

There’s a phenomenon called “twin films” where, due to factors ranging from cynical plagiarism to changes in copyright to spikes in industry interest, two movies are released in the same year with similar premises. It’s the collision between Deep Impact and Armageddon, Antz and A Bug’s Life, Troy and Alexander, The Prestige and The Illusionist, La Llorona and The Curse Of La Llorona, or Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down, which were all released within months of their partner. More rarely though, are situations like the one facing filmgoers this month, where The Runner, a terrible Gal Gadot jogging thriller, and Runner, a so-so Alan Ritchson organ-delivery actioner, are coming out just nine days apart.

That’s not even mentioning the Spanish movie Runner from May of this year—which Wikipedia includes as a “see also” example on The Runner seemingly just to be more confusing—or Runner Runner, the 2013 movie that one-upped all of this year’s running-based releases with its doubled title. And let’s just not even bring up the Road Runner, who torments Wile E. Coyote in Coyote Vs. Acme.

What so often shakes out from these kinds of cinematic pairings is a clear victory. One movie clears its twin, whether by a nose or by fully lapping them. The other is left in the dust, remembered mostly as an afterthought associated with their more popular doppelganger. The strange part of the near-simultaneous release of Runner and The Runner is that neither film is especially good; it’s as if they’re two mockbusters in search of an actual hit movie to mimic. This is bound to confuse prospective audiences about which bad movie they’re actually seeing, and whether they should log whatever they end up watching on Letterboxd or Strava. If you’re seeking out a bad time for perverse fun, you at least want the right bad time.

Beyond the titles of these new releases, differentiated only by a load-bearing article, and the marketing material—which sees both sets of roughed-up actors looking slightly off-camera—there are some key factors to look for if you’re wondering if you’re about to get some good-bad steps in with The Runner or just Runner (which drops the “the,” because it’s cleaner):