Trivia / Runaway

• Box Office Bomb: Budget: $8 million, Box office: $6,770,587.
• Completely Different Title:
  • Denmark: Death Runs Wild
  • Hungary: Killing Robots
  • Japan: Future Police
  • Mexico, Peru and Portugal: Out of Control
  • Russia: Robot Hunt
  • Slovenia: The Cobweb of Death
  • Taiwan: Thunderbolt
• Creator's Oddball: This is the only film of Cynthia Rhodes, a professional dancer who had featured supporting roles in '80s films about dancing (Flashdance, the Saturday Night Fever sequel Staying Alive, and after this film, Dirty Dancing) that didn't require her dancing skills.
• Dueling Movies: With a multi-million dollar budget, one of the biggest actors at the time and written/directed by a science-fiction legend, this film was projected to be the major sci-fi film of late 1984 — or at least a major one, as the same month it opened so did Starman, Dune (1984), and 2010: The Year We Make Contact — and the definitive "Renegade Robot" movie. Instead, it got overshadowed by a B-movie about a robot assassin played by an Austrian bodybuilder who barely spoke English, co-starring alongside actors who only had theatre experience, and written/directed by an unknown (whose last film credit was Piranha Part Two: The Spawning).
• The Foreign Subtitle:
  • Germany: Runaway: Spinning Death
  • Brazil: Runaway: Out of Control
  • France: Runaway: Escape from the Future
  • Greece: Runaway: Special Pursuit Team
  • Spain: Runaway: Special Brigade
• Life Imitates Art: While things like tracking bullets and killer robots are still fictional or in development stages, the movie did predict the increased usage of drones and even tablet computers. The modest functions of some of the service robots even predicts such gadgets as the Roomba.
• Method Acting: To help Luther's performance come off as more unnerving and realistic, Michael Crichton refused to show Gene Simmons any of the script until the days of shooting, and even told him not to speak with his acting coach about the film. Reportedly it worked so well that when Simmons was doing a quick practice of a scene, a security guard on set got so spooked out that he thought Simmons was some random troublemaker that needed to be kicked out.
• Star-Derailing Role: After gaining notice for her supporting roles in the '80s dancing films Flashdance and Staying Alive (the sequel to Saturday Night Fever), professional dancer Cynthia Rhodes was cast as the co-star of this film in her first lead role. Unfortunately for her, this film's underperfomance meant that a career as a leading actress wasn't meant to be for her. After another supporting role in another famous '80s dancing film, Dirty Dancing, she retired from acting a few years later. This also had the added effect of making Runaway an Creator's Oddball in her career, as it is her only film that didn't require her dancing skills.
• Technology Marches On: Computers are hardware rather than software-oriented; the MacGuffin is a set of phototemplates used to mass-produce microprocessors, when millennials would expect a flash drive. Luther uses a mobile phone so he can't be traced, and the police are stymied rather than triangulating him via cell towers. Ironically the Everything Is Online trope is averted because of this, with Luther having to enter the police station to break into their computers, though he does tap (not 'hack') into the CCTV cameras.

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