When Rob Cohen purchased the rights to the Richard Bachman novel "The Running Man," he had no idea that Bachman was actually a pseudonym for Stephen King.
Many people who worked with Richard Dawson on the game show Family Feud (1976) say that in real life Dawson was more like his character Damon Killian in his handling of underlings.
When Arnold Schwarzenegger ran for governor, he rode around in a campaign bus and named it after this film.
Erland van Lidth ("Dynamo") was a classically trained Helden baritone opera singer, so in his introduction when Dynamo is singing an aria from "The Marriage of Figaro," it actually is van Lidth singing. He died in 1987 the same year the movie was released. This was his final movie, as well as that of Richard Dawson (Damon Killian).