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As I acknowledge with every new edition of The King Beat, there isn’t a week that goes by without some kind of significant events in the world of Stephen King, and in the last seven days, arguably the biggest development has been the on-going production of director Francis Lawrence’s The Long Walk. After getting the greenlight last fall, the film has started production up in Manitoba, Canada with a cast including Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Mark Hamill and Judy Greer. The movie is based on a King book that’s never been adapted before – and for this week’s column, I have a special treat for all of you who have been patiently anticipating it.
Yesterday, I had the wonderful pleasure of interviewing filmmaker JT Mollner, who has written the screenplay for The Long Walk as his follow-up to the upcoming horror movie Strange Darling (which will be arriving in theaters on August 23). He provided me with some wonderful insight into the making of the new Stephen King film, and I’m sure that all of what he has to say will excite fans who love the source material. Let’s dig in!
The Long Walk Screenwriter Promises That The Movie Is Going To Be Just As Intense As The Stephen King Book
Let me put this as bluntly as I can: Stephen King’s The Long Walk is a fucked up book. First published in 1979 with King’s Richard Bachman pseudonym, the dystopian tale centers on a collection of teenage boys who take part in a popular competition that is essentially a death march – the last contestant left alive at the end promised money and a dream prize. It’s an emotionally brutal read… and it’s soon going to be adapted as an emotionally brutal movie.
One of my greatest curiosities about The Long Walk movie has been in regard to the way in which the film would adapt the tone of the book, and per JT Mollner, audiences should start bracing themselves now. The screenwriter told me that it was important to not only him and Francis Lawrence that the film capture the darkness of the book, but Stephen King as well. Said the filmmaker,
The great thing about this is that Francis, this is a true… I mean, it’s not a low budget movie, but it’s not as big of a budget as he normally works on with big franchises like the Hunger Games and stuff. So this is a true passion project for him. He wanted to do it the right way, a faithful way. And he knew that meant it was gonna be a very hardcore, disturbing and somewhat controversial movie. And that’s the movie I was interested in writing. Stephen King also was very committed and determined for Francis to make a rated R film, one that honored the book and stayed true to the book.
In The Long Walk, protagonist Ray Garraty is one of 100 teenagers who compete in the titular contest. The rules state that walkers must maintain a pace of at least four miles per hour, and slowing down or stopping means being penalized with a warning. If a boy collects three warnings and fails to increase his pace (or he tries to make an escape), he gets shot by the secret police agents that are following along.
With rules like that, one could understand that softening the edges would be a big challenge for the filmmakers… but there is no edge softening going on. Mollner noted that there are changes being made, but there are no compromises for palatability:
We didn’t really pull any punches. Most of the stuff that you remember being tough to take in the book still exists. And there are some tweaks made to update it that I think are smart… But I’m very happy with the adaptation as a Stephen King fan. I’m really happy with what we did with it. And even the studio notes that came in and the feedback from everybody, everybody was on the same page as far as staying true to the brutality and the seriousness of the book.
In short, you may want to start emotionally girding yourselves now.
‘Is This Movie Cursed?’: JT Mollner Reveals How He Came To Write The Long Walk And The Ups And Downs Of Pre-Production
It should be noted that this is not the first time that Hollywood has tried to produce an adaptation of The Long Walk. In the past, George A. Romero and Frank Darabont individually had visions that never made it to production, and there was a version set to be helmed by André Øvredal in the last few years that couldn’t make it to the finish line. So what makes this new version special? Per Mollner,
The key is Francis Lawrence and Roy Lee, first of all. It is crazy ’cause you mentioned those legends, and Darabont is one of my favorite directors; I wish he’d make more movies. George Romero, he’s a God. I was able to meet him before he died thankfully. I don’t know what the problems were then, but I know that Roy Lee is… I really respect good producers. But there’s not a lot of ’em [laugh]… But Roy is like a magician because he gets the rights to these projects, and then he really wants to make them. He doesn’t just hoard them and hold onto them.
The Long Walk is the latest King project to be produced by Roy Lee, with other credits including Andy Muschietti’s IT duology, Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep and The Stand miniseries. It was Lee who brought Mollner aboard for his latest movie, as he felt that the screenwriter would be a good fit to work with Francis Lawrence:
Stephen King trusts [Roy Lee], you know? Because he made IT and a number of other things that have gone really well. And Stephen King trusts him. And Roy wants to come through on that. And so I remember when he got it, and he said, ‘Would you be interested in writing The Long Walk? Do you like it?’ And I’m like, ‘Do I like it? I love it. I have it right here, dude. I’ll read it over again right now to see.’ And he goes, ‘Because I think I’ve got a director who’s interested in it, and you’d have to meet with that director.’
It was about a week later that he met and clicked with Lawrence, and the project was set up to be produced and distributed by Lionsgate… but then the writer’s strike happened:
I started thinking, ‘Is this movie cursed? Is it not gonna get made again and I’m part of that? The Deadline article came out and now this movie’s not gonna get made.’ But after the strike, I was able to get to work on it. And I’d like to think my script had a lot to do with it. I wrote a script and Lionsgate green lit it after the first draft that I’d worked on with Francis for a few months.
While the writer’s strike in 2023 forced development of The Long Walk to hit pause, the project ultimately had the chance to move quickly once the labor battle was settled. Unlike what happened with past attempted adaptations, the stars properly aligned for the movie. Mollner explained,
Francis is great to work with. He had incredible notes and we found an approach that I think really honored the book and the themes of the book very, very faithfully, but also found new narrative approaches to add surprises to the movie. And I think it just has to do with that combination of people. And like I said, I’d like to take some of the credit, but those other writers who wrote those other drafts, I’m sure had great scripts too. I think I just got caught up in the perfect storm of really great people who wanted to take action quickly.
The screenwriter specifically cited the enthusiasm of the executive at Lionsgate helping to shepherd the project, adding,
Meredith Wieck, who’s our executive at Lionsgate, told me when I was still writing in January, she’s like, ‘It is on my New Year’s resolution list to make sure we’re in production on this movie this year.’ And so everybody was really determined, and now, they’re shooting. I was just on set. So it’s really cool.
As noted at the start, principal photography has commenced in Manitoba, Canada – and it’s already been an interesting experience.
The Long Walk Is Being Filmed In Sequence, And The Actors Will Be Getting A Serious Workout
On top of the treatment of the story and the long history of getting an adaptation made, The Long Walk has long fascinated me as a logistical challenge for a film production. The vast majority of the book is just characters constantly walking, and that means that the actors in the movie are going to be getting a serious cardiovascular exercise. Mollner confirmed as much when I spoke with him this week.
When I asked about the workout that the young actors will be getting during principal photography, the screenwriter told me that he recently attempted to keep pace with them during a production day, and he felt the burn:
It’s funny: I already noticed it on the first day, ’cause they’ve created this really cool circumstance where they have like a mobile video village. So Francis and his team can move along with the walkers and they can really be on the move and capture things as they happen. But I spent one day outside of that village kinda watching and just walking with the walkers and then going back and walking with the walkers next to them. And I was like, ‘Wow, I feel like I just got a major exercise.’
The writer also revealed another aspect of the shoot that is fascinating: The Long Walk is being shot in sequence. Actors will be naturally fresh-faced at the start of the movie, and he expects that they will undergo a physical transformation before the end. Said Mollner,
It is being shot mostly in sequence, so I think that you’re gonna see a change physically in some of these guys as the movie goes on. That’s real. That’s not about hair and makeup or CGI. You’re gonna see physicality that morphs and people getting either thinner or more tired or whatever. I mean, stuff’s gonna happen because they’re gonna do a lot of real walking in this movie.
I haven’t seen a shot of this film yet, and I’m already planning on comparing screenshots of the characters from the beginning and the end.
That wraps up this edition of The King Beat (couldn’t squeeze in a Recommendation Of The Week for this one!), but I’ll be back with a new feature next Thursday – which will include another special treat. Be on the lookout for the column, and in the meantime, you can learn about the full history of Stephen King movies and TV shows with my series Adapting Stephen King.