The Long Walk’s Movie Adaptation

Stephen King’s first novel is being adapted into a movie and is set to release this year. Image Credits: Gamereactor

Stephen King’s first novel, the Long Walk, is getting its long-awaited movie adaptation. Here’s what we know:

The Long Walk follows Ray Garraty and 99 other boys who must walk at military marching pace until there’s only one left. In true King fashion, it promises to twist readers’ guts into knots. A masterful critique of American patriotism and militarism, it makes for an entertaining and fresh dystopian from the age before The Hunger Games revolutionised the genre.

Ray Garraty is played by Cooper Hoffman, the son of late Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Other notable actors include David Jonsson, playing McVries, who you may recognise as the winner of the 2025 BAFTA Rising Star Award. Mark Hamill–yes, Skywalker himself–will be playing the movie’s antagonist: the Major.

The movie is directed by Francis Lawrence, who also directed every Hunger Games, including the upcoming Sunrise of the Reaping. Fans will notice that Ben Wang, who plays Olson in the Long Walk and will also play Wyatt Callow.

King wrote the novel when he was just 18, studying at University of Maine, and it was published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1979.

The trailer can be found on YouTube. The movie is set to be released later this year.