At this time, there are five upcoming Stephen King adaptations that are set to premiere in 2025, but a potential sixth is just waiting to get a firm release strategy confirmed. Francis Lawrence’s The Long Walk, produced and set to be distributed by Lionsgate, completed production last year so Constant Readers are now just waiting for an official date it will hit theaters. The situation has already earned some impatience from fans – and that feeling is only going to be magnified thanks to King’s recent comments about the movie.
The latest update about The Long Walk is the main headline in this week’s edition of The King Beat, but that story is supplemented with additional comments from the author about how his relationship with Hollywood and the development of adaptations has changed since the years when Brian De Palma directed Carrie and Tobe Hooper brought Salem’s Lot to the small screen. There’s a lot to discuss, so let’s dig in!
Stephen King Has Read The Script For The Long Walk, And He Sounds Amazed That It Went Into Production
When I had the chance to interview Strange Darling filmmaker JT Mollner last summer, I was only made more excited for The Long Walk by everything he had to say about his screenplay for his first Stephen King adaptation. As anyone who has read the book knows, it is a shocking and violent story, and while using adjectives like “hardcore” and “disturbing,” he assured me that no punches are being pulled.
It’s an assessment that is apparently shared by Stephen King, as he got the opportunity to read the script and was so shocked by the work that he thought it would never get to production.
The latest episode of The Kingcast dropped this week featuring a new hour-long interview with the legendary author, and among the most exciting things he says on the podcast pertain to his outlook on The Long Walk movie. He compares his thoughts on the screenplay to how he felt when he first had the chance to read Frank Darabont’s script for The Shawshank Redemption: he thought it was high quality but was left with every expectation that it would never be put in front of cameras. Said King,
I am interested to see what that guy, Francis, whatever his name is... Francis Lawrence – what he's done with, with The Long Walk. I read [JT] Mollner's screenplay, and I thought it was terrific. And I thought the way that I felt when I read the script for Shawshank Redemption: I thought, 'This is great, but they'll never fucking make this.' So I'm curious to see whether or not they put Mollner's screenplay on the screen. And if they did, I think it'll be interesting.
As we all know, Frank Darabont ultimately got Castle Rock to produce his vision for The Shawshank Redemption, and it is now regarded as a modern classic. That perhaps sets the bar of expectations far too high for The Long Walk, but there is certainly a chance for the film to be a powerful and very memorable cinematic experience.
Based on the 1979 novel that Stephen King originally published under his pseudonym Richard Bachman, The Long Walk is a work of dystopian horror that centers on a group of American teens who are selected to compete in the titular competition. The game is simple: everyone must continuously walk and maintain a constant pace until there is only adolescent left standing. Slowing down or stopping gets a warning, and if three warnings are collected by a walker in an hour, said walker is shot and killed by soldiers constantly monitoring their progression.
The entire book is a death march that features no breaks from the action, and multiple filmmakers (including George A. Romero and the aforementioned Frank Darabont) tried and failed to get a film adaptation produced. The extreme content and tone of the story has always been a road block, but JT Mollner’s script was able to progress further than any other previous attempt.
I can imagine that The Long Walk will ultimately be akin to works like Requiem For A Dream or The Zone Of Interest, in that it will be a movie that a person will only ever want to see once – but as someone who loves King’s work and the book, I am beyond excited to see what the adaptation is like. Starring Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Roman Griffin Davis, Mark Hamill, and Judy Greer, the film is currently in post-production, and you can be sure that we here at CinemaBlend will report on release date information as soon as it is known.
Stephen King Shares How His Relationship With Adaptations Has Changed Over The Last Half-Century
There are many movies based on the works of authors like Philip K. Dick, Agatha Christie, John Grisham, and Nicholas Sparks, but nobody in the modern era holds a candle to Stephen King in that realm. Carrie, his first novel, was turned into a film just a little over two years after it was first published, and the faucet has not been turned off since. It’s an extremely rare thing for a full calendar year to go by without at least one new adaptation or at the very least a new season of an existing King television show.
But how has his relationship with those projects changed over the last 50 years? That was a subject discussed in the new Kingcast interview. The author was asked about the abundance of adaptations that are set to arrive in 2025 – including three movies (The Monkey, The Life Of Chuck, and The Running Man) and two TV shows (IT: Welcome To Derry and The Institute) – and he explained why he presently finds himself disconnected from all the machinations in Hollywood. Reflecting back on the start of his career, he remembers that all of it used to be more exciting because it meant that he could both provide for his family and make a living as a full-time writer. Said King,
Yeah, it's a nice thing, but it doesn't... I mean, for me, at the beginning it was all about, 'Let's put some distance between my family and the poor house.' In other words, I went into this with my eyes wide open. I know that most writers who published, there are very, very few who make a living wage from just the writing alone. And that's really what I wanted to do.
Continuing, he added that he didn’t make any real money from the box office success and legacy of Brian De Palma’s Carrie – but where the film did impact his life was in book sales. He explained that having a movie poster as the front cover of a paperback was a huge deal, and that was where he saw the biggest impact of the adaptation from a financial perspective:
When Carrie came along it, it helped the book; there was no money involved. If you listen to MGM or United Artists, whoever now owns the rights to Carrie, they'll say it never made a profit… There's a creative accounting that goes on. But I got a certain amount of money for the option, a little bit more from... Although Doubleday, at that time, those thieves took about half. But anyway, it sold the book. They could put a movie cover on the paperback, and at that time, paperbacks were the dog that wagged the tail instead of the tail that doesn't wag the dog. The paperback came, got a second wind, and it went to the bestseller list.
Of course, it’s not all about the money. He added that he has happy seeing his work on the screen and was thrilled to see his subsequent novels get the same kind of attention that Carrie received.
Practically everyone knows that Stephen King has never been a fan of Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining, but at the same time, the author vividly remembers the first time that he had the chance to speak with the legendary filmmaker. Said King,
I was off and running, and I was happy and excited at the beginning. I mean, when Salem's Lot got made, and then when Kubrick decided that he was gonna make The Shining, I was just over the moon. I was shaving one morning and my wife comes in and she's got this expression on her face, and I'm thinking, 'Who died?' And she says, 'Stanley Kubrick is on the phone to talk to you.' And so I actually talked to Stanley Kubrick. What I'm saying is, at the beginning, all these things were really sort of exciting and new – the way that anything is when you start out.
Calling Stephen King jaded in his time dealing with Hollywood and majors studios/networks might be a bit of a stretch; instead, his approach to the whole adaptation side of the author experience is now more about compartmentalization. He focuses on the business of writing books (he has at least one new novel or collection released every year), and when a movie or television show based on his work comes around that he appreciates, he lets his thoughts be known (Or in the cases of those he doesn’t like, he opts to remain silent). He added,
Over the years, I will say that I have never taken my good fortune for granted. I'm very, very grateful for everything that I've gotten. But as far as the movies go, I'm over here on the left side and the movies are over here on the right side. Sometimes they get together, sometimes I really like what I see, and when I like what I see, I say what I can see. I think Life of Chuck is fucking fantastic. I really do. Some of the other ones, I don't talk about 'em because, you know, my mother said, 'You can fill in the blanks. If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.'
In the case of 2025, things are notably off to a hot start. In addition to sharing his love for The Life Of Chuck (which will be in theaters on May 30), Stephen King has also expressed a lot of appreciation for The Monkey, which will be released on February 21 and has been described by the author as “batshit insane.”
That brings us to the end of this week’s edition of The King Beat, but I will be back rounding up the biggest news from the world of Stephen King here on CinemaBlend next Thursday and every Thursday for the foreseeable future! Be on the lookout for my next column, and in the meantime, you can learn about the full history of King on screen with my series Adapting Stephen King.
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