The film's story, set in a dystopian United States between 2017 and 2019, is about a television show called The Running Man, where convicted criminal "runners" must escape death at the hands of professional killers. It is very loosely based on the 1982 novel of the same title written by Stephen King and published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman.

References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Running_Man_(1987_film)