11 votes

First look at Stephen King's 'The Long Walk'

Posted by WrathOfTheHydra
Tags: books, authors, stephen king, adaptation, the long walk, first look, francis lawrence, richard bachman, dystopian, the hunger games, author.anthony breznican, source.vanity fair, paywall
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/first-look-at-stephen-king-the-long-walk

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Title
First Look at Stephen King's 'The Long Walk': The Dystopian Coming-of-Age Story He Considered Too "Merciless" to Film
Authors
Anthony Breznican, Kase Wickman, Paul Elie, Erin Vanderhoof, Molly Jong-Fast, Savannah Walsh, Nate Freeman, Krista Schlueter, David Canfield, Caroline Reilly
Published
May 6 2025
Word count
2866 words

9 comments

  1. [5]
    WrathOfTheHydra
    (edited )
    Link
    The Long Walk is a book under Stephen King's pen name Richard Bachman. The story takes place in an alternate-dystopian version of Maine (USA) where teens sign up for an annual walking marathon to...

    The Long Walk is a book under Stephen King's pen name Richard Bachman. The story takes place in an alternate-dystopian version of Maine (USA) where teens sign up for an annual walking marathon to the death. They are forced to maintain a walking pace across the country until only one is left standing.

    This thing has been getting tossed around in production limbo since I read this at least... 15 to 20 years ago? It's a hard book to adapt to film faithfully given the amount of internal dialogue and complex concepts used throughout the book. I'm curious, for anyone else that has read this, how you think this will hold up with Francis Lawrence at the helm. He's directed Constantine, I Am Legend, Red Sparrow, and all of The Hunger Games sequels.

    6 votes
    1. [4]
      aphoenix
      Link Parent
      I am a big fan of the book. I liked Constantine and Red Sparrow. I have relatively positive feelings about the Hunger Games movies as "better than average movies I watched because my kids loved...

      I am a big fan of the book. I liked Constantine and Red Sparrow. I have relatively positive feelings about the Hunger Games movies as "better than average movies I watched because my kids loved the IP". So on some levels, I think Lawrence can adapt things.

      Spoilers for book and movie I Am Legend. tl;dr it was a bad adaptation

      The ending of I Am Legend is so misguided and showed such a broad lack of understanding about the source material that it makes me question his ability to adapt things. It effectively rendered it totally meaningless; the point of the story is that Neville is the "Legend", that he is the monster to the infected. It is maybe the most important thing to take from the book, and it was changed because of one test audience. I understand that testing is important, and decisions are made based on the reception that people have, but I think that the vision of the art should not have been this compromised. There could have been other changes to the ending that still showed some level of understanding of the point of the material.

      That makes me a little nervous about this adaptation, but luckily I think that the novella, while a really great read, has less of an epiphany to it than Matheson's I Am Legend. I think it's likely that this adaptation could be quite good. I think it comes down to who they cast as the boys, and I think a lot of the cast seems like they're going to be pretty good. Roman Griffin Davis was good in Jojo Rabbit, Cooper Hoffman was good in Licorice Pizza, Joshua Odjick was in Three Pines, and I don't remember him being bad. The rest of the cast includes Mark Hamill and Judy Greer, and I would watch both of them chew scenery any day of the week.

      Overall, I'm mildly excited and hopeful for this.

      5 votes
      1. chewonbananas
        Link Parent
        Will Mark Hamill get squaded in a flashback?

        Will Mark Hamill get squaded in a flashback?

        1 vote
      2. [2]
        mantrid
        Link Parent
        Was the decision to change the ending of I am Legend made by Francis Lawrence? I've always assumed that panicked reshoots due to poor test screenings are the work of producers and film companies.

        Was the decision to change the ending of I am Legend made by Francis Lawrence? I've always assumed that panicked reshoots due to poor test screenings are the work of producers and film companies.

        1 vote
        1. aphoenix
          Link Parent
          I think it was producer who made the call, but it was Lawrence who made the changes. Here's a reddit post about it and I think the main thing is this: It was likely not his call to make the...

          I think it was producer who made the call, but it was Lawrence who made the changes. Here's a reddit post about it and I think the main thing is this:

          Testing. This is a slightly complicated answer, testing is the reason we changed the ending. We shot the original ending that you can find on the blu-ray and tested it, and the audience at the test fully rejected that ending. So we quickly over three days re-shot the ending to the movie where Will's character sacrifices himself to save the cure for this disease that he has found, and the girl of course goes off and finds the survivors colony. But the truth is, is I look back at the movie and I realize that nobody went to see this movie for the hordes of the infected descending on his house or for the original ending or the theatrical ending, and we actually could have done the story as written in the novel purely, and I think the same amount of people would have come and all the fans of the book would have been happier.

          It was likely not his call to make the change, but how it was changed was likely within his control. Or maybe it wasn't and he was bullied into doing this, and my concerns are misplaced.

          2 votes
  2. [2]
    JXM
    Link
    It’s kind of funny that we’ve had a resurgence in the past 5 years of good Stephen King adaptations and now we’re getting two Richard Bachman back to back with this and The Running Man remake...

    It’s kind of funny that we’ve had a resurgence in the past 5 years of good Stephen King adaptations and now we’re getting two Richard Bachman back to back with this and The Running Man remake coming out this winter.

    Is the Bachmanissance beginning?

    3 votes
    1. DeFaced
      Link Parent
      Apparently the recent adaptation of the stand was not vary well received. To be fair, the stand is a beast of a book to adapt to film/TV.

      Apparently the recent adaptation of the stand was not vary well received. To be fair, the stand is a beast of a book to adapt to film/TV.

  4. Nivlak
    Link
    I’ll check this out for sure but I am interested to see the Cujo remake also. I saw the original in my 20s and I knew the basic premise already so I figured a dog with rabies is not that...

    I’ll check this out for sure but I am interested to see the Cujo remake also. I saw the original in my 20s and I knew the basic premise already so I figured a dog with rabies is not that terrifying. Turns out a loose and rabid St. Bernard is proper nightmare fuel.

    1 vote