Reacher’s riding high, but Alan Ritchson’s second 2026 box office flop keeps sinking
Reacher’s smashing it, but Alan Ritchson’s 11 September action-thriller is stumbling at the box office — his second big-screen misfire of 2026.
Fresh off making a big splash as Reacher for Amazon, Alan Ritchson can’t seem to buy a win at the box office this year. His latest film, Runner, really isn’t drawing a crowd – not in the UK, not in the US, and certainly not anywhere else. It’s one of those cases where streaming stardom just isn’t translating to cinema tickets.
Runner has brought in $13.1 million worldwide since its September 11 debut.
Cinema Trouble for a Streaming Star
The stats aren’t pretty. Runner, an action-thriller where Ritchson plays a courier tasked with getting a liver to a hospital before a gang nicks it, has taken just $11.9 million at the US box office. If you’re checking the maths, that’s over 90% of its total. Outside US borders, the film’s barely made a dent – a paltry $1.2 million, which is hardly blockbuster territory for a film built around two recognisable stars.
It’s not like Owen Wilson is some nonentity, either. You’d think a transplant heist premise and a couple of decent names would put seats in chairs. Apparently not. Even with a plot designed to ratchet up tension, rather than draw in crime syndicates (maybe next time?), audiences just haven’t shown up.
Critics? Kind Enough, But…
The reviews haven’t been damning. Early ratings had Runner in the high 60s on Rotten Tomatoes, which - for Ritchson’s film lineup - is actually doing fairly well. Still, no matter how many mildly complimentary things critics scribbled, the ticket-buying public absolutely wasn’t having it. The box office figures didn’t even make an effort to bounce back. Week on week, numbers dropped, with no hint of pent-up demand lurking in the background.
The Second Flop This Year
There’s a pattern emerging for Ritchson. Runner is his second cinematic miss in 2026. Earlier in the year, he starred in Motor City, a pretty bare-bones revenge flick with hardly any dialogue, and that fared even worse: up against a $30 million budget, it scraped together just a few million at the domestic box office before being quietly shifted onto digital platforms. Again, critics weren’t hostile, but normal viewers simply stayed home.
Whether it’s the marketing, release timing, or just plain disinterest, there’s a gulf opening up between Ritchson’s streaming pull (where Reacher continues to dominate for Amazon) and what his films can do in actual cinemas. With Resident Evil comfortably lording it over multiplexes right now, Runner isn’t likely to stage any sort of comeback from here.