It’s been a long wait for The Long Walk, but the movie is finally hitting theaters on September 12th of this year. Lionsgate broke the news on Tuesday at CinemaCon, according to The Hollywood Reporter — nearly a year after the last real update on this project. Hollywood has been trying to adapt this book since 1988, but every previous iteration has hit some kind of roadblock and fizzled out. Finally, this adaptation filmed between July and September of last year, and is ready for release in the fall. The official logline describes the movie as “An intense, chilling, and emotional thriller that challenges audiences to confront a haunting question: how far could you go?”
According to King, The Long Walk is the first novel he ever wrote, having started it as a freshman at the University of Maine in 1066. It wouldn’t be published until 1979 under King’s pen name Richard Bachman. It’s a dystopian horror story set in an alternate-reality United States where a totalitarian force rules the country. The biggest televised event of the year is “The Long Walk” — an annual contest that challenges 100 boys to see who can keep walking down U.S. Route 1 for the longest. Those who can’t keep the pace are killed.
The screenplay for this adaptation was written by JT Mollner — best known for Strange Darling — and directed by Francis Lawrence — best known for directing four of the Hunger Games movies. Mark Hamill plays The Major, the primary antagonist of the story, and he joined Lawrence on stage at CinemaCon on Tuesday.
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“None of the actors wanted to meet me,” Hamill joked, wearing sunglasses just like his character. He praised the story and this rendition of it in particular, saying, “The premise alone is nightmare-inducing but it’s good to get out of your comfort zone… If you can’t be the hero, there’s nothing better than being the villain. If you get booed and people hate your guts, then you’ve done your job.”
The first attempt to adapt The Long Walk would have been directed by horror icon George Romero, but sadly it never went into production. After that, Frank Darabont acquired the rights and held them for several years, but other projects continually took priority. In 2018, New Line Cinema obtained the rights and assembled writers James Vanderbilt, Bradley Fischer, and William Sherak as well as director André Øvredal for the project, but that fell through as well.
Things finally kicked into motion when Lionsgate took the reigns in 2023, and now it looks like we’ll get to see a movie over three decades in the making. The Long Walk is hits theaters on September 12th, 2025. King’s book is available now in print, digital, and audiobook formats.
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