An adaptation of The Long Walk, a Stephen King novel that was published under the Richard Bachman pen name back in 1979, has been trudging through development hell for decades. At one point, the rights were in the hands of Frank Darabont, who made the King adaptations The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist. Then the rights passed over to New Line Cinema, where Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark director André Øvredal was hired to direct the film from a screenplay by James Vanderbilt, whose credits include the two most recent Scream movies. While doing the press rounds for his film The Last Voyage of the Demeter earlier this year, Øvredal revealed that he was no longer involved with The Long Walk, and said not making that movie is one of the big regrets of his life. Now we know who has replaced him at the helm: Francis Lawrence.
Lawrence’s previous credits include Constantine, I Am Legend, Water for Elephants, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Parts 1 and 2, Red Sparrow, and Slumberland. While doing press for his latest film – The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes – Lawrence was asked which upcoming projects he’s most excited for. He told Business Insider, “I’m definitely excited to do a Constantine sequel because we’ve been talking about it for so long, and we’ve had so many hurdles in getting some control over the character again. … It’s really feeling like we could make it at some point. I’m now attached to The Long Walk, the Stephen King book. Very excited about that. BioShock. There’s a Sublime movie that I’ve been developing that we have a great script for.“
The Long Walk is set in a future dystopian America ruled over by a militaristic dictator, and the titular event is an annual contest in which 100 teenagers must keep a steady pace of at least four miles an hour under strict rules until only one of them is left alive. The winner receives “The Prize”: anything they want for the rest of their life. The story follows Raymond Garraty, a 16-year-old from Pownal, Maine, as well as a group of other teenagers with good, bad, and mysterious intentions.
As you can see from his quote, Lawrence is currently developing several different projects. So we’ll probably have to wait a while to find out if he’s the director who’s finally going to bring The Long Walk to the screen.
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