FILM · 1984 · USA
Runaway
48 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (48)
- #001
During location shooting, an assistant director approached Gene Simmons and told him that one of the off-duty Vancouver police officers handling crowd control had pointed at Simmons and said, "better get him outta there." After the assistant director assured him that Simmons was one of the actors, the officer continued: "I don't know… if I shook hands with him, I'd count all my fingers."
- #002
Runaway was the last science fiction film directed by Michael Crichton.
- #003
In his book "Sex Money Kiss," Gene Simmons said that director Michael Crichton's decision to cast him was essentially based on an audition in which Crichton asked Simmons to look at him for about a minute without making any facial expression. Crichton apparently decided Simmons looked threatening enough and cast him as Luther.
- #004
Writer-director Michael Crichton said of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the film's main shooting location: "From the beginning we were looking for a distant place. We wanted an urban environment. An attractive city where we could find talented film crews. We shot three films in Los Angeles and one in England and Ireland. This was by far the best experience."
- #005
Star Tom Selleck said of the film's story in the period before its 1984 release: "Even though it's set in the future, the film has a contemporary feel. I think that's because the robots in it are technically advanced, but not so far removed from what we read in the newspaper almost every day. The robots in Runaway (1984) are the kind we'll probably see in factories, offices and homes within the next few years."
- #006
The film accurately predicts domestic robots, video mail, social media, the internet, voice-activated computers, biometric security (retina identification), camera drones, tablet PCs, wireless earphones (Bluetooth) and police officers using semi-automatic pistols as their weapon (in 1984 most police officers used revolvers).
- #007
Michael Crichton said of shooting in Vancouver and in the Canadian province of British Columbia: "The [British Columbia] provincial government was absolutely as helpful and accommodating as you could imagine. Making a film really requires the goodwill of the people in the community. Let's face it, film companies are a complete nuisance. We disrupt traffic and we make noise. There's quite a lot of disruption that results. There was a great sense of goodwill from Vancouver that helped us make this film. We appreciate it."
- #008
The pistol used by Ramsey is a custom-made Detonics 1911 9mm, and its barrel is flared so that it looks like a .45.
- #009
The film's director, Michael Crichton, said the Canadian crew was both positive and enthusiastic, and that the entire film would be shot in British Columbia except that the late spring weather there delayed the growth of corn, making it necessary to move to Moses Lake in the US state of Washington for a two-day shoot for the cornfield scene.
- #010
Given Ramsey's age of 35 (revealed in the film) and his birth year of 1956 (flashing on a computer screen), the film is set around 1991.
- #011
Kirstie Alley, who played Gene Simmons's used and abused girlfriend Jackie, said preparing for the role was a little difficult: "Jackie is a sick girl, fascinated by the evil that surrounds Simmons's character. But she needs that excitement. So for my role I tried to remember that when I was thirteen I fell in love with an eighteen-year-old criminal. He stole cars, came from a wealthy family and had been expelled from school. I tried to remember the fascination he held for me during the time I knew him. I loved him because I had been raised so honestly that I remembered that danger, and it worked."
- #012
"Runaway" was composer Jerry Goldsmith's first entirely electronic score. Several speakers were placed in the cinema to give the synthesizers ambience, and the playback was recorded.
- #013
In many of the film's promotional images (most notably the posters), Tom Selleck is shown holding the rocket weapon used by the villain Luther in the film, although Ramsey never used it at any point in the story.
- #014
The film's 1984 production notes said: "One of the differences between this film and some new science fiction films is the robots. Unlike the human-acting robots in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) and the human-looking robots in Blade Runner (1982) and The Terminator (1984), these are really machines. Just as today's car manufacturers use industrial robots for certain tasks in assembling cars, within the next five years we will see robots like those in this film; robots that pick insects off crops, guard offices and prepare and serve food."
- #015
Almost the entire film was shot within a thirty-mile radius of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
- #016
According to the film's production notes, writer-director Michael Crichton was a man who did not take filmmaking lightly. Every detail had to be exactly right. Crichton said: "We're making a story that looks to me like how the world will be in a few years. Most of the things that have to be in the future in the film are already here."
- #017
Runaway is the second of two film collaborations between actor Tom Selleck and director Michael Crichton. The first was Coma (1978), about six years earlier, in which one of the coma patients hanging in the coma room was Selleck.
- #018
It was KISS member Gene Simmons's first villain role on the big screen. His second would follow about two years later with Wanted: Dead or Alive (1986).
- #019
In the film's opening theme music, composer Jerry Goldsmith used the five-note doorbell sequence from the cartoon The Jetsons (1962) as a salute to the technology of the future.
- #020
Kirstie Alley had great praise for Michael Crichton. "I can give a performance that others might think is good, but I know it's not the best I can do. Michael understands that. He'll do take after take until both he and I know I'm there. He can sense the right emotion and he pushes you until you hit it. That's good for me, because when I leave the set I know I've done the best I can."
- #021
Anne-Marie Martin, who plays a prostitute, was married to this film's director, Michael Crichton, between 1978 and 2002.
- #022
According to actor Tom Selleck, Ramsay was completely different from every character he had played up to that point. Selleck said: "There's a family tie. He has a son. But he's also a very determined character. When he gets involved in something, he pursues it with a determination none of the other characters I've played had. At times he screws up. Sometimes he blurs, which is what really makes the script interesting." Selleck also said: "The nice thing about Runaway (1984) is that the characters don't get lost. You're still learning who they are, and that's it. That's important to me."
- #023
It is one of five science fiction films directed by Michael Crichton. All of them had one-word titles: Pursuit (1972), Westworld (1973), Coma (1978), Looker (1981) and Runaway (1984).
- #024
Story is the most important element in all of Michael Crichton's works. He believed the biggest problem with some films was that they had elaborate sets or exotic equipment, meaning they were very large and visual and therefore very interesting to look at, creating a threat that the technology would take over the film. Crichton said: "The robots and the level of robotics in Runaway (1984) are very primitive and mechanical. We don't have anything super-intelligent. They're machines. They're not perfect. Because they're primitive they're a little stupid and they make mistakes, and that increases the tension in the film. There are several scenes where the characters' work doesn't let the machines do it. Tom's (Selleck) character constantly says, 'Let a person operate the machine.'".
- #025
The film depicts an early variation of social media, before MySpace and Facebook. After Bobby's kidnapping, there is a scene listing the social preferences of the household robot in the Ramsay family.
- #026
At 58:00, Marvin (Ofc James, played by Stan Shaw) uses a pressurized "cutter" to examine the round. This cutter is a standard air/water syringe of the kind used in dental offices nationwide.
- #027
As Thompson and the police technician composite a mug shot of Luther (immediately after he kills Luther Johnson) on a small computer screen, Luther's image flickers.
- #028
It is one of two films released in 1984 featuring actor G. W. Bailey as a high-ranking police officer working with Karen Thompson; the other is Police Academy, where the progression runs from Kim Cattrall to Karen Thompson to Bailey to Lieutenant Harris.
- #029
The name of Tom Selleck's character, "Ramsay", is spoken about 52 times in the film, a little more than once every two minutes.
- #030
Whenever Sgt. Jack Ramsay (Tom Selleck) pulls back his son's bed covers, he reveals that his son is watching a small television. You can see that Ramsay takes a different, non-working television out from under the pillow. This is probably because small flat-screen televisions were not available in 1984.
- #031
It was the first major theatrical film prepared for Hollywood Studio by musician Gene Simmons, of KISS fame.
- #032
Cynthia Rhodes, the actress who appeared in two major dance films that stole the box office (Flashdance (1983) and Staying Alive (1983)), used her dramatic legs in this film as Karen Thompson, the police partner of Jack Ramsay (Tom Selleck), a modern woman starting a career in law enforcement. Rhodes said: "I would read all these things about what a nice guy Tom is. And I'd think, 'Give me a break. Nobody's that nice.' But he found something he didn't like in every career. He finally settled down and became a policewoman and said, 'Okay, this is what I want to do and I'll make every effort to make it work.' But sometimes she tries too hard and gets herself into big trouble." Rhodes added: "I got the chance to show a lot more emotion in this film. There's a scene where Tom has to remove a miniature guided missile from my arm before it explodes. While playing the scene I found myself hyperventilating. Afterwards the paramedics used as extras in the scene noted that my blood pressure rose to 165 during the shooting." Romantic interludes between Tom's character Jack Ramsay and Cynthia's character Karen Thompson are also present in the middle of the film's action. Rhodes commented: "Karen is an ambitious person who thinks she might be in love with Ramsay but worries that it might not be professional. She has romantic feelings for him but is more measured. We have some great tender moments, and in the film his son Bobby openly states the fact that he will love me as his new mother."
- #033
Kirstie Alley's character was held hostage in the same place in both Runaway (1984) and Shoot to Kill (1988): Robson Square, Vancouver. In Runaway (1984), she was exchanged for a hostage at an open-air restaurant at the top of the square's waterfall. In Shoot to Kill (1988), she was held hostage once again, this time inside the waterfall behind glass screens.
- #034
Robotic spiders appear predominantly in Runaway and are controlled by Gene Simmons's character, Luther. Since 2013, the centerpiece of the KISS stage show in which Simmons co-stars has been a giant animatronic spider with moving tentacles and numerous optical and pyrotechnic special effects.
- #035
Among the robots, tools and weapons featured in the film are a magnum rocket gun used by the villain, explosive heat-seeking missile smart bullets that can turn corners, miniature remote-controlled race-car-like self-propelled road mine robots that race under cars and explode, a model 912 domestic robot girl robot, a police sketch artist's portable computer tablet, a one-meter-square aerostat hovering buoy CCTV camera, sensor dog crime-scene robots, an agricultural yellow lacquered metal two-armed pest control robot, sentry security guard robots, eyeball identity scanners, and fast-moving insect robots that are robotic spiders resembling mechanical arthropods with deadly poisonous metallic stings.
- #036
The "mono-dichromate dense-pack" chip that explodes in the police laboratory inside the robot that goes berserk with the baby at home is labeled with Texas Instruments' CD4011AE designation. This is a quad 2-input CMOS NAND gate in a 14-pin, dual in-line plastic package.
- #037
Michael Paul Chan and G. W. Bailey would later work together on the television series "The Closer" and its spin-off "Major Crimes" on the TNT network.
- #038
The film's title refers to "runaways", the manically malfunctioning robots that pose a physical risk to people and/or property.
- #039
Runaway marks Cec Verrell's first appearance.
- #040
The MacGuffin in the film is the schematics for a computer chip that causes robots to go out of control.
- #041
The film is referenced in Community season 1, episode 15, in an episode titled "Romantic Expressionism" by Dan Harmon.
- #042
Runaway marks Joey Cramer's first appearance.
- #043
The prank of using a remote-controlled car that explodes under the intended victim's vehicle was also used in The Dead Pool (1988).
- #044
When Jack Ramsay (Tom Selleck) visits the medium, he begins reciting a short list of names, one of which is "Lucifer." Given that many critics of Gene Simmons's band KISS claimed the name stood for "Knights In Satan's Service," this may be an inside joke.
- #045
Both the producers and the stars agree that the film is essentially an action movie rounded out with plenty of flashy hardware and visual effects.
- #046
The film was featured on the comedy podcast How Did This Get Made in its 114th episode, with special guest River Butcher.
- #047
Tom Selleck starred alongside David Rasche in 'An Innocent Man' in 1989, while Anne-Marie Martin starred alongside David Rasche in 'Sledge Hammer!' from 1986 to 1988.
- #048
The Italian censorship visa # 80497 was issued on March 30, 1985.
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