Darabont Tag Teams With King Again For The Long Walk

LongwalkIt appears that Frank Darabont is dedicated to bringing as much of Steven King’s work to the silver screen as possible. Word on the street this morning is that the two will be back in the saddle for the adaptation of The Long Walk. We get the skinny from our friends at Latino Review:

Well Rotten Tomatoes is reporting that Darabont and King are together again for King’s The Long Walk. What’s it about? It is the story of a futuristic foot race where competitors are shot when they stop walking. The last man walking wins.

With Fahrenheit 451 set to be Darabont’s next project, The Long Walk could still be a long way off. “That right now is still in the future. That’s on one of the back burners for now. It probably won’t be too long but before I do that, I’m hoping to get Fahrenheit 451 rolling next year.”

My buddy Bill told me about this story about 10 years ago. I kept saying I would read it, and it looks like I will get around to the movie before I will finish the book. The Running Man may be my favorite film that was based on a Steven King story. I love films about futuristic sports, and it is for this very reason that I greatly anticipate The Long Walk.

If you stop walking, you are shot. If you are the last one walking – you win. That is a simple game, and a fantastic idea for a story. As we follow the characters along the road we start to pick favorites and feel for them. Only one will survive; and at what cost – victory atop a corpse mount of like-minded competitors. I itch with anticipation!

Have any of you guys had a chance to read this story, and/or are you as excited as I am to see this made into a movie?

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12 thoughts on “Darabont Tag Teams With King Again For The Long Walk

  1. I read the story, it was pretty good, one of the Bachman books when King was writing under another name. I always wanted someone to do the story “Rage” by Bachman. I always thought Christian Slater would do a good job (in his younger days).

  2. It is definatly my favourite King book, that ending is killer…. but the end of running man is damn fine too, they should make that version, here’s the finger corporate america.

    Im going to have to dig out the Bachman books and read them again

  3. I’ve known for some time that Frank Darabont had bought the rights to The Long Walk and I was wondering when the ball would start rolling on this one.

    This is by far one of my favorite King short stories and I have been waiting for years for it to be made! However, if Frank touches the ending I’m done watching his films. The original version of the Mist in the book was pathetic and wouldn’t have made a good movie ending at all, so I was glad that Frank pumped it up and gave us such a killer ending. On the other hand, The Long Walk is perfect as it is in the book. It was King at his best when it came to simple story ideas with no fluff needed to make it great. No mystical monster crap going on, just good gritty drama.

    As others have said, there’s not a lot to it but a bunch of young males walking. There are some flashbacks that Frank can use to break the pace up a little bit and I hope he uses them to hs avantage. My only fear is that they will change the movie to include girls in the cast of walking characters which might sound really politically incorrect but I think it works better as all males for some reason. For anyone that hasn’t read this one, go out and pick it up, read it, and then go take a brisk walk for a measly 2 or 3 miles. Tell me how you feel at the end of it and then rethink the story a little bit.

    The best way this movie could be seen would be in a marathon fashion where people would watch the film while walking on tread mills for the entire duration of the film! That would be awesome! Ok, I’m going a little marketing crazy now.

    Viva La Walk!

  4. The Long Walk was one of kings best works it was printed under the pen name of Richred Bachman and its more of a phycho thiller however ive got to say that the books story is a perfect vessel to get super preachy having just seen the Mist on cant help but feel that Frank will proably go that route again

  5. Its a great story but its even darker and grimmer than The Mist. Not sure how this would translate to film. There would have to be a lot of flashbacks once they start walking.

    Stand By Me is a lot more than just walking though, they often stop, make side trips, and tell stories. In The Long Walk once the walking starts, it never stops.

    Until the end.

  6. Personally, I liked Rage better (and think it could make a better film), but this story is a close second. I agree that, aside from basic premise, the Running Man movie was nothing like the book, but I still enjoyed it. That being said, I hope The Long Walk is more faithful.

    King’s stories aren’t always that great, but I always enjoy his writing because he writes characters better than almost anyone. That’s what the Long Walk is really about: characters. If it’s done right, this could be one of his best, right up there with Shawshank Redemption.

  7. The Running Man was one of the worst cases of rape of a story. The story was so far off from the book that the two hold barely any similarity at all. I so dug the story, dealing with one man sneaking around and hiding out from an entire nation. It was an awesome take on a twisted tv show. The movie was terrible. Just … ugh.

  8. The Long Walk is my favorite S.King story ever. I’ve been waiting for that one to come to the big screen for years and years. Now I will begin praying, “Please don’t screw this up! Please Don’t Screw this up!”

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