"The Running man" by Stephen King was published in 1982, the movie starring Schwarzenegger was released in 1987 (another adaptation will be released this year in 2025)

The story is similar to a Robert Sheckley's short story from 1952,"The Prize of Peril" adapted into a movie in Germany in 1970 "Das Millionenspiel" and in France in 1982 "Le prix du danger" (same year as King's Running Man novel)

I would say "The Prize of Peril" is the grandfather of these books, movies and series, as far as I know. Battle Royale is the start of another branch, though : it's not one vs many anymore, it's many vs many.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prize_of_Peril

Would The Most Dangerous Game maybe be an earlier ancestor? Although the game in that is more one sided.

Perhaps the core source of inspiration are the roman gladiator arenas, themselves probably inspired from olympic games.

The Most Dangerous Game walked so Hard Target could run

Definitely at least some cousin branch of the family tree...

> it's many vs many. More like everyone against everyone.

So Hobbes' "war of all against all" is the real prior art, then?

The Long Walk is cited by the Battle Royale author as an inspiration.

He also has his protagonists hail from the fictional town of Shiroiwa-cho 白岩町, which is a direct translation of King's frequently-seen "Castle Rock". I wonder how many Japanese readers of the original spotted that.

Collins has cited "The King Must Die", Mary Renault's book about Theseus and the Minotaur, as a primary inspiration for the The Hunger Games, FWIW.

The Most Dangerous Game was published in 1924