The Long Walk Writer Reveals He Was Terrified Stephen King Would Hate the Movie (He Likes It!)

One of the most highly anticipated Stephen King adaptations of the year is just around the corner, as The Long Walk will finally march its way into theaters next month. Directed by Francis Lawrence (Constantine, The Hunger Games franchise) and written by Strange Darling’s JT Mollner, the dystopian horror drama promises to uphold the brutal and bleak tone of King’s 1979 novel. During San Diego Comic-Con, ComicBook spoke with Mollner, cast members Garrett Wareing and Tut Nyuot, and producer Roy Lee about the upcoming King adaptation, where the screenwriter admitted that one of the biggest challenges of writing The Long Walk for the big screen was being “terrified” that King wasn’t going to like the movie.

“It’s exciting,” Mollner said of adapting the novel. “It’s also scary, especially when you love the writer so much. But when Roy introduced me to Francis, Francis told me what kind of movie he wanted to make, and that was the movie I wanted to write, you know? I’m so familiar with Stephen King, and I was so excited about the vision Francis had for this movie that I was very confident that I would have a good time writing it and I knew how I wanted to write it. I was just terrified that Stephen King wasn’t gonna like it. So, when we found out he liked it, it was a really, you know, important moment.”

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“I love writing and telling original stories,” he continued. “But, if there’s a book that exists, a story that exists, that I feel connected to, that I feel like I could have written, or could have come up with myself that I feel like it has [or] shares artistic DNA with my heart, then it would feel right. This felt right. I will say about Francis that, even though there’s some obvious narrative parallels between this and a few other movies he’s directed, I think this is, like, a departure for him. I think it’s a different kind of movie … His approach to this was so unique, and it was so true to King’s DNA that he told me right off the bat he wanted to go all the way, you know?”

The Long Walk was the first novel King ever wrote when he was 19 years old in 1967, and was published a few years later under his pseudonym Richard Bachman. Several filmmakers have tried to adapt The Long Walk for the big screen over the years, including the late George A. Romero, Frank Darabont, and André Øvredal. King told Vanity Fair in May that the “merciless quality” of his book is likely why previous efforts proved unsuccessful.

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The Long Walk movie centers on Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman) and Peter McVries (David Jonsson) among a large ensemble cast as they participate in a televised, deadly annual walking contest in a dystopian America. Overseen by The Major (Mark Hamill), the grueling walk only ends when there is one survivor remaining. The large group of young men marching with no real destination is whittled down one by one if they fail to maintain a pace of more than three miles per hour, they try to escape, or their bodies give out. If their speed slows, they receive up to three warnings to resume their pace before being immediately executed by one of The Major’s soldiers monitoring the walk.

The Long Walk will arrive in theaters on September 12th.