For longtime Stephen King fans, “The movie version of The Long Walk is on its way” may sound like a cruel tease — and a familiar one, at that. King’s 1979 novel (written under his Richard Bachman pseudonym) has been heading toward theoretical film production since at least 1988, when Night of the Living Dead director George A. Romero was reportedly attached to direct.
King fan and filmmaker Frank Darabont (director of The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist) held onto the rights for decades, promising he’d eventually make the movie. News that longtime Stephen King producer Roy Lee (the It movies) had bought the rights and that Francis Lawrence (the Hunger Games movies) would be directing The Long Walk sounded promising, though. And now the film finally has a trailer and a release date, strongly implying that it might actually be happening this time.
The long journey to The Long Walk is endlessly surprising — on a surface level, it seems like one of Stephen King’s most eminently filmable horror stories. In a dystopic future America, a contest is held every year where 100 teenage boys set out on a walk together, accompanied by a military escort. Anyone who drops below a certain speed gets three warnings before being shot in the head. The Long Walk continues until there’s only one survivor, who gets anything he wants. And that’s the entire story. It sounds simple, but it’s one of King’s most beautiful and nuanced books, with most of the story happening in the character interactions between the doomed boys and the eventual winner. Here’s Lionsgate’s summary of the film:
From the highly anticipated adaptation of master storyteller Stephen King’s first-written novel, and Francis Lawrence, the visionary director of The Hunger Games franchise films (Catching Fire, Mockingjay – Pts. 1 & 2 , and The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), comes THE LONG WALK, an intense, chilling, and emotional thriller that challenges audiences to confront a haunting question: how far could you go?
Cooper Hoffman (Saturday Night, Licorice Pizza) stars as Ray Garraty — an interesting casting, because while at age 22, he seems too old to play the 16-year-old Garraty, he’s proven himself to be a terrific and nuanced young actor over a variety of projects. The cast also includes Mark Hamill as The Major, the mysterious military leader behind the Long Walk, Charlie Plummer (King Jack) as intolerable foil Gary Barkovitch, and David Jonsson (broken android Andy from Alien: Romulus) as Garraty’s friend Peter McVries. Garrett Wareing, Tut Nyuot, Ben Wang, Roman Griffin Davis, Jordan Gonzalez, Joshua Odjick, and Josh Hamilton round out the featured cast. Judy Greer also has a role in the movie, as Garraty’s mother.
The Long Walk will be in theaters Sept. 12.
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