Want The Full Josh Brolin Experience? Watch These Two 2025 Movies Back-To-Back

Josh Brolin often doesn’t get credit for his versatility as an actor, but in 2025, he’s showing off his range. He often plays complex, rugged heroes like in Dune or ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool 2, infusing them with an emotionality that keeps them relatable, and his latest role in Weapons sees him playing a character that fits his best strengths.

Brolin plays Archer, a working-class father who is desperate to find his son, Matthew, one of the 17 kids who mysteriously disappeared into the night. While he does some heinous things while acting in fear and anger, his devotion to his son and eventual heroic turn make his motives more understandable.

Still, Brolin has proven he can also play horrifying villains, such as Thanos in the MCU or Tom Chaney in True Grit. Unlike Archer, these characters are past the point of no return, and offer almost no redeeming qualities. This year, Brolin has the opportunity to pair his Weapons role with a much darker turn in Edgar Wright’s upcoming The Running Man.

Josh Brolin’s Running Man Character Is An Irredeemable Villain

As the film progresses, his character has a change of heart, uniting with Ms. Gandy to save his son and the other children from Aunt Gladys’ spell. Additionally, he also realizes the mistakes he made as a father, apologizing to Matthew in a dream sequence for not showing him enough affection.

The goodwill that audiences showed Archer in Weapons will not be earned by his character in The Running Man. Based on the 1982 novel by Stephen King, the film is set in a dystopian, totalitarian version of the United States in which desperate people can compete in violent television games to earn money.

Brolin plays Dan Killian, the executive producer of the network’s most popular show, The Running Man, in which a contestant is declared an enemy of the state and is hunted by the entire world for 30 days. Each day their prize fund goes up, and if the contestant survives the full game, they earn $1 billion. But no one has ever made it that long – and Killian ensures no one ever will.

Brolin’s producer is a despicable villain in more ways than one. He not only runs a sadistic game show for ratings and power, but he is also a major weapon for the state. His network is a propaganda machine, serving to distract citizens from their daily struggles and keep the upper and middle classes blaming the poor for their problems. He takes drastic measures to ensure no radical messages are ever shared by contestants.

Furthermore, he treats everyone around him as expendable, and doesn’t care who gets hurt, as long as it benefits his ratings. There is nothing redeemable about him; his only motivations are greed and control.

In other words, he’s the perfect Weapons follow-up for Brolin. After going for nuance with Archer, it’ll be a nice contrast to see him fully break bad again in The Running Man.