One of Stephen King’s earliest books is finally coming to the screen.
The Long Walk has been a long time coming. Stephen King published the book under his Richard Bachman pseudonym in 1979, but he wrote the thing at uni around ’66 or ’67. Depending on who you listen to, it’s his first completed novel and now, at long last, it’s coming to the big screen. Along with every other Stephen King property, it seems. Except for The Talisman, because Spielberg has been sitting on the rights for aaaaaaaaaaaaages. The latest word on that one is that that the Duffer Brothers of Stranger Things fame are on it, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Anyway: The Long Walk. Shall we check out the trailer?
Yeah, kinda sneaks up on you, doesn’t it? The Long Walk is one of King’s grimmer tales. The concept is simple: in a fascist near-future America (so, about 2027, give or take) there’s a competition – that’s The Long Walk – where a hundred young men walk along US Highway 1 up the East Coast. The thing is, they can’t stop, or even slow down – if they drop below four miles an hour three times, the soldiers accompanying them will blow their brains out. There’s no finish line – last man standing (well, walking) wins). And so it goes.
A heaping helping of top notch directors have tried to film The Long Walk over the years. George A. Romero, who directed King’s Creepshow and The Dark Half, tried in the late ’80s, then fellow King veteran Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist) took a run at it. James Vanderbilt and André Øvredal were attached at different times more recently, to no avail. Finally, Francis Lawrence managed to get it over the line, working from a script by JT Mollner (Strange Darling). Lawrence, of course, is no stranger to the idea of young folks being fed into the meat grinder in dystopian futures, having directed the bulk of The Hunger Games series.
Cooper Hoffman is our protagonist, Raymond Garraty, with David Jonsson, Garrett Wareing, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang, Roman Griffin Davis, Tut Nyuot, Jordan Gonzalez, and Joshua Odjick also on the march. Judy Greer is on board as Hoffman’s on screen mother, while ol’ Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, is the Major, the iconic, ruthless dictator of whatever the US has turned into here. This marks Hamill’s second King role this year – he also crops up in Life of Chuck.
Me, I’m keen for this one – I’ve been only been waiting 30-odd years for an adaptation. Whether the actual film can bear the weight of expectation is a whole different question, though. We’ll found out when The Long Walk hits Australian cinemas on… oh, September 11.
How apt.
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