Every Version Of Stephen King's The Long Walk That Didn't Get Made

2025 is already shaping up to be yet another big year for Stephen King fans. With Osgood Perkins' "The Monkey" having come out back in February, the remaining months are paved with big screen adaptations of "The Life of Chuck" and "The Running Man," in addition to a television series based on "The Institute." In case that wasn't enough, it seems especially fitting that "The Long Walk, one of King's bleakest stories, is finally set to hit theaters in September from director Francis Lawrence and "Strange Darling" screenwriter JT Mollner. Marathons will never be seen the same way again.

The harrowing premise of "The Long Walk" envisions a dystopian future in which a group of young boys volunteer for the titular event in which the winner gets to make a wish of their choosing from an ominous figure known as the Major (Mark Hamill). All they have to do is walk, but the catch is that there's no finish line — at least not one all of them will live to see. The marathon doesn't end until there's only one left standing. Should a participant fall behind, they get three warnings before a bullet seals their fate. Cooper Hoffman ("Licorice Pizza") and David Jonsson ("Alien: Romulus") are among the ensemble taking the most important stroll of their lives.

"The Long Walk" feels monumental for a number of reasons, with one of the most important being its place in history among King's body of work. Although the novel wasn't published until after "The Stand" in 1979, it's one of the famous author's earliest stories. It was a high school project that lasted well into his time at the University of Maine and ultimately sat on a shelf until he decided to release it under his pseudonym Richard Bachman nearly a decade after its conception.

You can see the DNA of "The Long Walk" works in "Squid Game," "Circle," and "The Hunger Games," so it makes sense that they got the director of the latter's entries to take a stab at a dire tale of survival amid overwhelming odds. Some might wonder why no one ever adapted until now, but the truth is that there were definitely some interested parties, but for some reason or another, it kept getting shuffled back and forth.

There's a certain irony in the film adaptation of "The Long Walk" tripping up multiple times before it can make it to the finish line. But unlike the participants in the story, there's no fatal end in sight, but rather a new beginning on the horizon for the timely tale. Lawrence's work on the "Hunger Games" sequels gives him an advantage to capture the dystopian challenge of King's novel, but there were many times when the film could have made history with a slew of great filmmakers.

The first one up to bat was none other than horror maestro George A. Romero, who was courted in the late '80s to helm the project. Though it never ended up materializing, much like his unmade "Goosebumps" movie, you couldn't have asked for a more socially conscious filmmaker to tackle the inhumanity of such an event. Although King doesn't directly state the Vietnam War as the central driving force of "The Long Walk," the senseless slaughtering of young Americans sent to fight overseas at the time partially influenced his cynical outlook on the world as a youth (via Vanity Fair):

"You write from your times, so certainly that was in mind. 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."

With Romero declining the project, next up was Frank Darabont in the late 2000s, who you'll likely recognize as the director of such beloved King adaptations like "The Shawshank Redemption," "The Green Mile," and "The Mist." Of the author's adapted work, Darabont was among the best filmmakers to understand King's material and, in such cases, improve upon it. It's especially a bummer this didn't happen because, aside from a few episodes of television, he hasn't directed a feature in nearly two decades.

Plans to adapt "The Long Walk" were even as close as 2019, with "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" director André Øvredal set to take over the project for New Line Cinema. Though not as prominent a filmmaker as Romero or Darabont, Øvredal possesses a great visual flair that could have brought the hopeless story to life. Alas, the project would migrate over to Lionsgate in 2023, in addition to Lawrence taking over directing duties. But in an interesting turn of events, there was a point in time when Lawrence nearly got the chance to make the film much earlier.

In 2006, Lawrence had released his adaptation of the DC Comics character "Constantine" and was working on a screen version of Richard Matheson's seminal post-apocalyptic novel "I Am Legend" for Warner Bros. In an interview with Variety Fair, Lawrence reveals that it was around this time that he tried his hand at making the big screen version of "The Long Walk" a reality:

"It crossed my desk in 2006, around the time I was making 'I Am Legend.' The guy who wrote 'I Am Legend' was one of the producers – Akiva Goldsman, who's now a friend of mine. He gave me a copy. We were trying to find something to do together, and I totally fell in love with it. We went to get the rights, and I think it might have been Frank Darabont who had nabbed them right before we could. I fell in love with it, but we couldn't do it."

Between "The Long Walk" and the upcoming "The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping," Lawrence appears to have cornered the market with stories of youths facing the wrath of cold-blooded regimes for the sake of entertainment. But his previous work in the "Hunger Games" universe shows a filmmaker who knows how to reveal the emotional complexities of such a disturbing predicament. The King story essentially sets up a tale of 1 person walking alongside and, in some cases, befriending 99 ghosts. What could be more harrowing than a coming-of-age story that ensures most of these children won't get to see a future?

With each of his "Hunger Games" sequels, Lawrence peels back an assortment of layers that demystify the fascistic stronghold of the Capitol and its effects on the citizens of Panem by exploring what leads people to commit such cruelty. That alone makes him an interesting candidate for such a bleak story, and I can't wait to see how he carries over those instincts to this.

"The Long Walk" is set to hit theaters on September 12, 2025.