AceShowbiz - Glen Powell has secured his first leading role in an action movie. The "Top Gun: Maverick" breakout and rising actor is confirmed to star in a new adaptation of Stephen King's "The Running Man".

Edgar Wright, who helmed "Baby Driver", is set to direct the project. The filmmaker reportedly will co-write the story with his "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" collaborator Michael Bacall, who will create the script.

King's futuristic novel is a chase thriller set in a dystopian America in the year 2025. The story narrates a man named Ben Richards participating in the violent reality show "The Running Man" to win enough money to revive his gravely ill daughter.

In the game, contestannts are being chased by teams of killers. The longer one survives, the more money that person makes. However, as the game show's producers and killers will find out, this desperate man will break all the rules and expose the show's dark secrets.

King first published the "The Running Man" under his pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1982. In 1987, the book was adapted into a movie starring [cArnold Schwarzenegger] and directed by Paul Michael Glaser.

As for Powell, he most recently starred alongside Sydney Sweeney in Sony's romantic comedy "Anyone But You". Since then, romance rumors between the two made media headlines, which caused him to break up with model Gigi Paris.

Powell has rubbished those rumors though, describing them as "disorienting and unfair." He told Men's Health magazine, "When all that stuff happened, you know, publicly, it felt disorienting and unfair. But what I'm realizing is that's just a part of this gig now."

Aside from "The Running Man", Powell will soon be seen in Universal's highly anticipated action sequel "Twisters" directed by Lee Isaac Chung. It's a new chapter to the 1996 box office hit "Twister" that also stars Daisy Edgar-Jones and hits theaters on July 19.