A story that took nearly five decades to reach the screen has conquered streaming in barely two days. The Long Walk climbed to number one on HBO Max in the United States after arriving on July 10, unseating Lee Cronin’s The Mummy from the top spot. The film also pushed past Deadpool 2, The Equalizer, and The Meg on the way up.
The premise remains as brutal as when Stephen King wrote it. An authoritarian regime holds an annual endurance contest where teenage boys must walk continuously at a minimum speed. Slow down and you receive three warnings, then a soldier executes you. The contest ends only when one boy remains alive.
The path to production is its own long walk. King wrote the novel in 1979 under his Richard Bachman pseudonym, and it was actually the first novel he ever wrote, drafted before Carrie made him famous. George Romero tried adapting it in 1988 and stalled. Frank Darabont, who made The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, acquired the rights and never delivered. James Vanderbilt and André Øvredal tried too, and the book earned a reputation as unadaptable.
Francis Lawrence finally cracked it, which makes sense given his Hunger Games pedigree. Cooper Hoffman leads as Ray Garraty, supported by David Jonsson, Charlie Plummer, Judy Greer, and Mark Hamill. JT Mollner wrote the script, and critics praised its refusal to soften King’s bleakness.
The film opened in theaters last September, grossing $63 million against a $20 million budget, so Lionsgate profited comfortably. It holds 88% from critics and 85% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, a rare agreement. To those unaware, Stephen King is a prolific American author widely dubbed the “King of Horror,” and is celebrated for blending the macabre with suspense, science fiction, and fantasy.
The streaming surge has a simple explanation, though. Many people missed it theatrically, so HBO Max is where discovery is finally happening. There is a catch for readers outside the US, since the film streams on HBO Max only in America, and global charts still belong to The Mummy.
You can check out the trailer below:
