Alan Ritchson's New Action Thriller 'Runner' Becomes a Top-5 Box Office Hit

Boosted by favorable reviews from critics and audiences, the new action movie Runner outperformed the less favorably received period thriller The Uprising at the domestic box office. Both movies debuted in roughly the same number of theaters this past week, although Runner is playing in around 500 more locations nationwide. The action movie, starring Alan Ritchson, arrives the same week as the Season 4 finale of Ritchson's career-defining Prime Video series Reacher, whose spin-off, Neagley, is also slated to debut on the same day. Earlier this year, Ritchson starred in the record-breaking sci-fi thriller War Machine, which went on to become one of Netflix's most-watched originals ever. In other words, Ritchson is most definitely one of the biggest stars around, even if he hasn't exactly proven himself on the big screen just yet.

Runner, directed by Scott Waugh, also features Owen Wilson. The two stars play characters who must join forces to deliver a liver to a dying girl before black market smugglers get their hands on the precious cargo. Waugh previously directed the action movies Need for Speed and Expend4bles, which received mediocre reviews and underperformed commercially. Runner, on the other hand, is sitting at a 71% critics' score and an 88% audience score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes.