The premise is deadly simple: walk… or die. Stephen King wrote The Long Walk when he was 19 years old — cynical, restless, and watching the body count of the Vietnam War climb. Over half a century later, that first novel (published under his Richard Bachman alias) is now a film, and if the trailer is anything to go by, it’s not pulling any punches. Watch the trailer above and get the info below.
A Relentless March Toward Death
Directed by Francis Lawrence (whose credits include I Am Legend, Constantine, and Hunger Games movies Catching Fire, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Mockingjay – Parts 1 & 2), The Long Walk imagines a near-future dystopia where 100 teenage boys are sent on a deadly endurance march. Stop walking, even for a moment, and you’re gunned down. Keep going until only one remains. There’s no finish line — just the promise of a wish, fame, and whatever’s left of your sanity.
The adaptation was written by JT Mollner, who wrote and directed 2023 thriller Strange Darling (highly recommended) and 2016 western Outlaws and Angels.
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In a Vanity Fair article on the film, King said he wasn’t writing a political allegory — but he admits the horror was personal. “You write from your times,” he said. “I was writing a kind of a brutal thing. It was hopeless, and just what you write when you’re 19 years old, man. You’re full of beans and you’re full of cynicism, and that’s the way it was.”
Bonding Through Brutality
The film follows Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman – star of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza, and son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Peter McVries (David Jonsson, Alien: Romulus), two boys who begin the walk as strangers and grow into something like brothers. “To me, that’s what the whole thing is about,” Lawrence said. “The conflict of what they’re there for and what they’ve been through only brings them closer.”
The shoot itself echoed the story’s structure. Lawrence insisted on filming in sequence — rare in modern filmmaking — so the physical and emotional toll would build naturally. “My walk changed,” Hoffman said. “My legs hurt. It had to look uncomfortable.” As characters were picked off, actors left the set for good. “I got pretty close with some of those boys, and I felt pretty sad when they left.”
Mark Hamill Gets Grim
Then there’s The Major — a charismatic, terrifying symbol of blind authority, played by Mark Hamill. Lawrence cast him after seeing his older, grizzled take on Luke Skywalker. “There was an authenticity… something wary and real,” said the filmmaker
Hamill, who grew up in a military family, understood the role immediately: a man who praises honour while overseeing executions. He’s both the showman and the butcher.
The Long Walk to the Screen
The Long Walk has spent decades in development limbo, attracting big names but never quite reaching the starting line. George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead) circled it in the ’80s. Frank Darabont (The Mist, The Shawshank Redemption) acquired the rights in 2007, but the project stalled. André Øvredal (Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) was attached in 2019, only for the adaptation to fizzle once again. It’s finally made it through the gauntlet—maybe because Stephen King stories are still in high demand, or maybe because its themes of control, resistance, and spectacle feel more timely than ever.
Either way, this one doesn’t look like an easy watch. The Long Walk, with a cast that also includes Garrett Wareing, Tut Nyuot, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang, Roman Griffin Davis, Jordan Gonzalez, Joshua Odjick, Josh Hamilton, and Judy Greer, will be in Australian cinemas on September 11 and U.S. cinemas on September 12.
