A fourth Stephen King adaptation has just been added to the 2025 release calendar.
Per Deadline, Lionsgate unveiled the first trailer for The Long Walk during its CinemaCon presentation. While the trailer was not released online afterward, a release date for the dystopian horror movie has been revealed: September 12, 2025.
What Happens in The Long Walk?
Francis Lawrence directed The Long Walk, which is based on the 1979 novel of the same name by King, published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Set in the future, The Long Walk follows 100 teenage boys as they embark on an annual competition known as “The Long Walk.” The rules are simple: maintain a speed above 4 miles per hour. Receive three warnings in an hour and you’re shot dead. The last one walking gets whatever he wants for the rest of his life. Under these grim circumstances, the boys develop deep friendships despite knowing that each of their friends’ survival is a threat to their own.
“This is my favorite Stephen King novel, I read it 27 years ago,” Lawrence revealed onstage at CinemaCon. “The rights got bought and then came back up. Roy Lee, my producer, brought it to me. For me, it was the conceit that was very interesting. You can imagine yourself in the shoes of these young men. World building –the heart of the movie for me is about these young men, their comraderies, the love that forms. This isn’t a try to knock each other out competition, but how we can hold each other up competition.”
The Long Walk stars Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang, Judy Greer, Garrett Wareing, Tut Nyuot, Jordan Gonzalez, Joshua Odjick, Roman Griffin Davis, and Izabella Raven, with Mark Hamill cast as the antagonist. “If you can’t be the hero, there’s nothing better than being the villain,” Hamill remarked onstage.
The Long Walk will be the third King adaptation to hit the big screen this year after The Monkey this past February and The Life of Chuck this coming June. Closing out the year will be Edgar Wright’s hotly-anticipated The Running Man adaptation starring Glen Powell in November.
We’ll be sure to share the trailer for The Long Walk once it’s released online.
Did you read The Long Walk? Are you excited for the movie?