It: Welcome to Derry Can’t Compete With 2025’s Deadliest Stephen King Adaptation Rivaling Squid Game and The Running Man

Stephen King season is basically year-round at this point. Between Pennywise popping up in IT: Welcome to Derry and Glen Powell suiting up for The Running Man, it’s easy to miss the 2025 King adaptation that quietly wrecked a lot of people: The Long Walk. If you like bleak sci-fi with a mean streak and a surprising amount of heart, this one sticks.

The Long Walk: the nasty game show that isn’t a game

Directed by Francis Lawrence and produced by Vertigo Entertainment and About:Blank, The Long Walk (2025) takes King’s premise and zeroes in on the most inhuman version of American TV. The setup is painfully simple: a group of boys are made contestants on a nationally televised march. The rule is even simpler. Stop walking, get shot. That’s it. The brutality isn’t subtle, and the show knows it.

Cast-wise, you’ve got Mark Hamill in the mix and David Johnsson (you saw him in Alien: Romulus), among others. It’s all staged in a near-future dystopia that feels uncomfortably close to now. Critics and audiences were into it — we’re talking an IMDb 6.7/10 and a very healthy 88% on Rotten Tomatoes — and the reaction makes sense. For all the shock factor, the movie keeps peeling back layers on these kids so you actually feel the cost of every mile.

If you want it right now: The Long Walk is streaming on Crunchyroll.

No, it’s not just 'Squid Game with sneakers'

I get why people bring up Squid Game — deadly challenge, desperate players, big prize. But The Long Walk plays different. Where Squid Game (to me) kind of lost the thread in season 2 and leaned harder on the spectacle of the games, The Long Walk keeps cutting in the characters’ histories at regular intervals. It’s not just about who stumbles last; it’s about why each kid is on that road and what it means if they make it off. That’s why it hits harder emotionally and psychologically — the marching is the surface, the damage is the point.

Welcome to Derry: what season 2 might be, if it happens

On the Pennywise front, there’s no official season 2 pickup yet for IT: Welcome to Derry. That said, creator Andy Muschietti has dropped a pretty clear hint about where a second season would go if the door opens:

"We can only say the stuff that’s already known, like it’s in 1935, 27 years before season 1 and it involves the massacre of the Bradley Gang from the books."

He’s also pointed to the town’s Depression-era gloom and the idea of rolling in younger versions of characters we already met. Considering season 1 wrapped with a big reveal that ties Pennywise more directly to the IT movies, a 1935 season would line up with the 27-year cycle and pull in a deep-cut book event fans have been waiting to see onscreen.

If you need to catch up: IT: Welcome to Derry is streaming on HBO Max.

If The Long Walk worked for you, try these next

• The Belko Experiment — Office survival horror with a corporate twist. IMDb: 6.2/10; Rotten Tomatoes: 55% critics, 40% audience. Watch on Amazon Video (rent).
• Death Race — Convicts, cars, carnage, and a made-for-TV meat grinder. IMDb: 6.4/10; Rotten Tomatoes: 41% critics, 60% audience. Watch on Amazon Video (rent).
• The Thinning — YA-flavored dystopia built around a deadly standardized test. IMDb: 5.3/10; Rotten Tomatoes: audience 61% (no critics score listed). Watch on Crunchyroll.
• Saw — The granddaddy of sadistic design and moral math. IMDb: 7.6/10; Rotten Tomatoes: 50% critics, 84% audience. Watch on Amazon Video (rent).