First Looks Finally Revealed for Adaptation of Stephen King’s “Merciless” The Long Walk

The long and winding road to bring Stephen King’s chilling novel The Long Walk to the screen has finally yielded its first tantalizing glimpses, with Vanity Fair recently publishing a series of first-look images and new details from the highly anticipated adaptation. Directed by Francis Lawrence, known for his work on The Hunger Games franchise, the film is now officially slated to hit theaters this September. King’s first-ever written novel, penned when he was just 19 against the grim backdrop of the Vietnam War, tells the dystopian tale of a brutal annual contest where 100 young men embark on a deadly marathon with no discernible finish line, forced to march until there’s only one survivor left. The newly released information underscores the film’s commitment to the source material’s bleak intensity and the “merciless” nature that King himself once thought would make it unfilmable.

“You write from your times, so certainly, that was in my mind,” Stephen King, now 77, spoke about the Vietnam War’s influence on his youthful work. “But I never thought about it consciously. I was writing a kind of a brutal thing. It was hopeless, and just what you write when you’re 19 years old, man. You’re full of beans and you’re full of cynicism, and that’s the way it was.” This early cynicism birthed a story where young men are sent to their deaths for sport under the watchful eye of a military leader known only as The Major, a narrative King admits had an “obvious true-life parallel” to the escalating body count of young American soldiers during that era.

[RELATED: 7 Underrated Stephen King Movies You’ve Probably Forgotten About]

​​Anything that has a contest with death as the stakes and some sort of big prize if you win can be connected in some way,” Lawrence said, acknowledging potential comparisons to The Hunger Games. “But in The Hunger Games, everybody’s competing in a very different kind of way. There are alliances, and you are trying to kill one another. Here, you’re not actually trying to kill one another. It’s a very different dynamic, in terms of relationships.” In The Long Walk, each of the 100 participants receives up to three warnings if their pace drops below four miles per hour or if they stop. A fourth warning results in an immediate bullet to the head. The walk continues relentlessly until only one boy remains. “You know that, slowly, these kids are going to be picked away one by one by one, which is not unlike pretty much any horror movie that you see,” Lawrence further explained, though he clarified that the story leans more into tragedy than straightforward horror.

The Long Walk Is Defined By Its Main Characters

The sprawling ensemble of The Long Walk‘s doomed youth primarily centers on Ray Garraty, played by Cooper Hoffman (Licorice Pizza), depicted as big-hearted, and Peter McVries, portrayed by David Jonsson (Alien: Romulus), a charismatic and philosophical front-runner. Their developing bond amidst the horror is central to the film. 

“To me, that’s what the whole thing is about. The whole thing is about the two of them bonding, and kind of falling in love in a weird way,” Lawrence stated. “The conflict of what they’re there for and what they’ve been through in the past only brings them closer together. The sacrifices they make for one another, to me, is the whole movie.” Hoffman found his own interpretation, seeing the story as a metaphor for endurance: “The Long Walk is a metaphor for life, in my eyes… Sometimes in life, you want to stop walking, and that’s a really dark thought. But the second you acknowledge that and come to terms with it — and then keep going — that’s a really beautiful thing.”

[RELATED: Stephen King Filed a Lawsuit to Stop One of the Worst Adaptations of His Work]

Overseeing the gruesome spectacle is The Major, brought to life by Mark Hamill. Lawrence explained his choice for Hamill, referencing his portrayal of Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi. “His Luke Skywalker at that point had weariness,” explains Lawrence. “There was an authenticity to it that was grizzled and wary and real. I asked for a meeting, and he and I had a Zoom, and I discovered that he had grown up traveling around in a military family. He was, like, ‘I know this guy.’” Lawrence added that despite The Major’s antagonistic, faceless presentation with mirrored sunglasses, Hamill “brings complexity and even some vulnerability” to the role.

One interesting detail revealed is an adjustment to the walk’s rules: the punishing pace has been slightly reduced from the novel’s four miles per hour to a still-demanding three miles per hour. “They changed it at my advice,” King shared, “because four miles an hour was just too f–cking fast.”

The journey of The Long Walk to the screen has been arduous, with notable filmmakers like George A. Romero and Frank Darabont previously attempting adaptations that ultimately stalled. King himself reflected on these past difficulties, pinpointing the story’s inherent harshness. “I think maybe what held it back in those other adaptations is that merciless quality,” King said. “Somebody putting down the money for it must’ve been, like, ‘I don’t know…this is hard. This is a painful one.’” The current adaptation, penned by J.T. Mollner, seems to have finally broken the curse, arriving amidst a significant resurgence of King’s works. King wryly commented on his prolific presence: “What’s weird is that I’ve almost become a franchise, like Marvel or something… ‘Legendary,’ when it’s connected to a person, basically means old.”

The Long Walk, is set to premiere in theaters on September 12th.

Are you prepared for the “merciless” journey of The Long Walk? Join the discussion in the comments!