Stephen King Demanded THE LONG WALK Show Teens Getting Shot: “If You’re Not Going to Show It, Don’t Bother”
As you know, Stephen King doesn’t pull punches in the stories he tells, and he wasn’t about to let Hollywood water down The Long Walk. As the dystopian novel heads to the big screen, King revealed the one rule he had for the adaptation: the brutal violence had to stay intact.
The author told The Times of London that the teens in his 1979 novel were meant to reflect the kids “pulled into the war machine” of Vietnam, which made it essential for the adaptation to fully capture the brutality.
“If you look at these superhero movies, you’ll see … some supervillain who’s destroying whole city blocks but you never see any blood. And man, that’s wrong. It’s almost, like, pornographic,” King explained. “I said, if you’re not going to show it, don’t bother. And so they made a pretty brutal movie.”
The Long Walk follows 100 young men competing in an annual walking contest across a bleak, dystopian America. The catch? If you stop, you die. Only one walker survives.
At Comic-Con, Lionsgate gave fans a first look at the movie by screening its opening 20 minutes. Screenwriter JT Mollner shared his approach, saying he wanted to stay true to King’s vision while making the story resonate for a new generation.
“Even though he was writing about specific things at the time, I feel that relevance is generational and wanted to make sure we had that. The beauty, love and the story of friendship along with the brutality of hopelessness and terror,” Mollner said.
“We wanted to go all the way. I knew that Stephen King wanted us to go all the way. I knew Lionsgate wanted us to go all the way. If this book got into the wrong hands, studio or filmmakers. It could’ve been neutered. So, I’m very grateful we were able to keep the teeth that the book has.”
Directed by Francis Lawrence, The Long Walk looks like it’ll be one of the more intense Stephen King adaptations. This isn’t a movie that’s going to shy away from the darkness of the original novel.
It’s set to hit theaters on September 12.