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The Long Walk screenwriter JT Mollner says that while he knew he was the man for the job, adapting the novel for the big screen was no easy feat.
"I knew it wasn't gonna be easy, but I felt a little overconfident when I started because I'm such a Stephen King fan, and I've got so much of him in my DNA," Mollner tells GamesRadar+.
"And I've read all his books," he continues, "and I'm so familiar with the material that I really felt like I was the right person to adapt it. When Roy Lee asked me if I wanted to adapt it, I just said yes right away – I know these characters better than anybody. I met with Francis Lawrence, and I realized he wanted to make this unrelenting version of the movie that's exactly right.
"I was so excited. And it wasn't until I was already in it, and I started working on it, where I got completely terrified and lost all my confidence because I realized that this was a mammoth."
The Long Walk is technically the first book that King wrote – having penned the novel around 1966 or 1967 when he was still in college. The book was ultimately published in 1979 under his Richard Bachman persona, before going on to be part of the hardcover Bachman Books collection in 1985 (after his persona was revealed to the masses).
So "people remember it as a short story," Mollner says about The Long Walk. "It's shorter than a lot of other King novels, but it's a legit novel. And it has, you know, 100 walkers in it. And so [that's] the part of it that became daunting to me as I was reading it over and over again. I read the book all the way through a number of times, making notes. I realized there was just too much that I liked."
The story centers on Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman), a young man living in a dystopian America who enters the annual contest known as The Long Walk. In the book, 100 young men walk at a fixed speed (4 mph) for as long as they can, and they keep walking until only one of them is left alive. The winner, after watching everyone around him die, gets to have whatever he wants – no questions asked. Along the way, Garraty forms a friendship with fellow walkers McVries (David Jonsson), Baker (Tut Nyuot), and Olson (Ben Wang).
In The Long Walk movie, the contest rules are changed to be a bit more realistic: there are 50 walkers, moving at a speed of 3 mph. The film is also set in a more desolate area of the United States (though it was shot in Canada), rather than among the forests of King's go-to location of Maine.
"There were too many characters that I liked. There were too many instances. There were too many things that were special," Mollner explains. "I got really freaked out about finding ways to keep what I needed to keep.
"The first thing was cutting it down to 50 walkers. And then the next thing was figuring out, like, what was the center of this? And it's the [relationship] between Garraty and McVries. And so I knew we had to really focus on that. And then aside from that, is there a deeper motivation? Is there something that can make us really compelled, narratively, that isn't necessarily in the book, but would work really well on the screen?"
The film adaptation changed hands and studios a few times before falling into the laps of Mollner and Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence. In 1988, legendary horror director George Romero was tapped to direct a film adaptation, but, much like his proposed adaptation of King novels A Buick 8 and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, it never materialized.
The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile director Frank Darabont then obtained the rights in 2007, but ultimately let them lapse. Both James Vanderbilt and André Øvredal were attached at certain points before the rights were scooped up by Lionsgate.
The 2025 film now sits at a 97% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with many critics calling it one of the best Stephen King adaptations ever made – as well as praising the various changes made to the story.
Adds Mollner: "When I felt like I cracked that code with Francis [Lawrence], we had to ask Stephen King whether he was okay with it. And thank God he was. And then I was able to get to work and really go through the motions to get it done."
The Long Walk is set to hit theaters on September 12, 2025. For more, read our The Long Walk review or check out our guide to all the upcoming Stephen King movies and shows you need to know about.
