Lionsgate has released a trailer for director Aneesh Chaganty's upcoming thriller Run. Back in 2018, Chaganty made a splash with his feature debut on Searching, a mystery-thriller starring John Cho as a single father trying to find his teenaged daughter after she suddenly disappears. The film was set entirely on computer screens and smartphones (among similar devices) and went on to become a box office hit, grossing $75.5 million on a budget of $880K. It was also a critical success, with Chaganty earning praise for his inventive storytelling techniques and the way he used genre tropes to explore deeper themes about parenting.
Fittingly, for his second feature, Chaganty will continue to explore ideas about parenting, albeit this time through the lens of a very different story. Written by Chaganty and his Searching co-writer Sev Ohanian, Run stars Sarah Paulson as Diane Sherman, a mother who's (seemingly) hiding some dark secrets from her disabled daughter Chloe (newcomer Kiera Allen), whom she home-schools and cares for obsessively. With the movie's May U.S. release date coming up in a couple months, Lionsgate is kicking off its marketing campaign this week.
The official trailer for Run is now online, ahead of its premiere in theaters this weekend. You can check it out, below.
In an exclusive interview with EW, Paulson cited Piper Laurie's not-so-great mother from Brian de Palma's Carrie as an inspiration for her performance in Run. However, based on the trailer, it seems Diane has just as much in common with another Stephen King character - namely, the mentally disturbed nurse Annie Wilkes from Misery, especially the younger version (played by Lizzy Caplan) shown raising her daughter on the Hulu series Castle Rock. The trailer indicates Diane is lying to Chloe about her real name, but otherwise avoids revealing anything too major about the film's secrets (including, whether Chloe is a reliable narrator). In a welcome bit of inclusivity, the latter character is portrayed by Allen, who actually uses a wheelchair in real-life.
Run is currently set to open stateside a week after Marvel's Black Widow officially begins this year's summer movie season and will face-off directly against similar counter-programming options like The Personal History of David Copperfield. Fortunately, the film has a pretty small budget (though, naturally, a bigger one than Searching did), and doesn't need to break the bank to turn a healthy profit. Even with positive reviews, Run may have a harder time standing out than Searching did, between its familiar premise and more conventional filmmaking style. With a little luck, though, Chaganty will avoid a sophomore slump and deliver a winning thriller in his second time at-bat.
