If you’re tuning into The Running Man, don’t anticipate surpassing the entirety of the Stephen King universe.

There exists a minor link between Edgar Wright’s 2025 reinterpretation of the horror icon’s 1982 novel and King’s vast array of narratives — and it pertains to IT’s terrifying sewer-dweller, Pennywise the Clown.

In The Running Man, desperate protagonist Ben Richards (Glen Powell) is relentlessly pursued throughout the Eastern United States by hunters for the sake of televised spectacle. From New York to Boston to Maine, Richards finds himself on the run, and it is in this last destination that he arrives in a recognizable fictional location: Derry.

Upon encountering locals gathered to watch The Running Man on a screen outside, Richards crosses paths with Elton Parrakis (Michael Cera), a secretive rebel and anarchist eager to dismantle the all-powerful Network with The Truth, his self-produced zine filled with exposés. We overhear Elton’s mother, oblivious to her son’s visitor, fretting about Richards being somewhere on the run nearby, as she inquires, “What if he’s in Derry?”

Derry is, naturally, Stephen King’s preferred fictional town in Maine, inspired by Bangor. Importantly, Derry also serves as Pennywise’s source of terror in IT. As Mashable’s Sam Haysom points out, “[Bangor] is the locale where the horror writer was residing when he authored his novel — a note at the conclusion of IT mentions King began writing the book in Bangor in 1981 and completed it a little more than four years later. The author has also affirmed in interviews that Derry is fundamentally a fictionalized representation of the Maine town.”

In King’s The Running Man book, Richard indeed makes his way to Derry, although the occurrences differ slightly. Another intriguing aspect in the film is that Elton and his mother reside in a Victorian Gothic mansion with vertical features and a turret, much like many characters crafted by Stephen King (and King himself). This includes Pennywise and the infamous Neibolt House as well. We’re not asserting that Pennywise inhabits Elton’s home in The Running Man; it’s merely a slightly eerie coincidence.

The Running Man premieres in theaters on Nov. 14.