2025 has been a great year for Stephen King fans who love adaptations, as quite a few of them are rolling out this year. The Long Walk's release should be one book-to-screen adaptation that many will be flocking to theaters to see, even if they'll probably be driving instead of walking. Director Francis Lawrence not only sought to make this movie that many in the past thought would be impossible, but he also felt it was incredibly necessary that it be crafted with an R-rating.
SFX Magazine had a chance to chat with Lawrence ahead of the film's September release and asked about the rating, as well as the need to make the movie exceptionally brutal. The director, who notably directed other dystopian thrillers like I Am Legend and The Hunger Games franchise, explained why he felt a need to make this an R-rated movie, and why there wasn't an option to make it any other way:
You need to make sure that you really feel the miles and the time. That you feel the degradation emotionally, psychologically, physically. That you feel the weather changes. I wasn’t going to buckle on that. I knew we were making a tough one. It doesn’t deserve to be PG-13; it deserves to be R. Stephen [King] also said it had to be an R.
Beyond Stephen King's insistence the movie be as brutal as possible, Francis Lawrence wanted The Long Walk to look and feel as brutal as its source material. I daresay it was a necessary feat, as while book readers may tolerate a movie where the primary action the characters are doing is walking, a movie-going audience may not have the same tolerance.
On that note, Lawrence said:
To be truthful to the book, it has to be violent, intense, sad. It has to be a tough watch. Whether supporting the war thematics, the financial nihilism thematics, or the anti-violence thematics, it has to retain that intensity.
Rest assured, as the trailer for The Long Walk showed no punches were pulled when it came to the heart-wrenching story of young men volunteering for a televised death march for a chance at being the sole winner. The person walking on the stump that used to be their foot was enough to make my stomach churn, and I'm sure that's not even the start of disturbing moments.
CinemaBlend learned from the cast at San Diego Comic-Con that the filming process was also brutal at points. Star Garrett Wareing revealed they walked around 300 miles filming the movie, most of which was resetting to their original marks between filming scenes. In any case, one would think it wasn't hard to fake exhaustion on those long days of shooting.
While The Long Walk isn't typical horror like other upcoming Stephen King adaptations, it sounds like Francis Lawrence is fully prepared to give audiences something to squirm and cringe over while this story unfolds. As he said above, it should be a "tough watch," and from what I know of the book, it certainly will be.
The Long Walk is in theaters on September 12th. Among the many upcoming 2025 movies, this remains one of my most-anticipated, and I can't wait to be so uncomfortable watching it.
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