Stephen King’s The Long Walk Digital Release: Here’s When You Can Watch It at Home

Missed The Long Walk in theaters? Francis Lawrence's Stephen King adaptation is already marching to digital. It hits VOD on October 21, so if you were curious about King's dystopian death march but not curious enough to leave the couch, your moment is basically here.

When and where you can watch it

Lionsgate rolled the movie into theaters on September 12. The digital release lands October 21 on the usual suspects: Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Fandango at Home, and Google TV. Prime Video preorders are already up.

How this finally got made (after forever)

This one has been circling Hollywood for decades. Frank Darabont — the guy behind The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist — had the rights at one point. Then New Line took a shot with André Øvredal (Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) set to direct from a script by James Vanderbilt (the two recent Scream movies). Øvredal eventually exited and, while promoting The Last Voyage of the Demeter last year, he put it bluntly:

'Not making that movie is one of the big regrets of his life.'

The version we got was written by Strange Darling writer JT Mollner and directed by Francis Lawrence — whose resume is basically a tour of glossy genre: Constantine, I Am Legend, Water for Elephants, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Mockingjay Parts 1 and 2, Red Sparrow, Slumberland, and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

The story (and why it is bleak even by King standards)

Set in a future America under a militaristic dictator, the Long Walk is an annual national spectacle: 100 teenage boys start walking, and they cannot stop. The rules are simple and brutal — keep at least a 4 mph pace under constant enforcement. Fall behind enough times and you are out, permanently. The last one standing gets 'The Prize': essentially anything he wants for the rest of his life. The film follows 16-year-old Raymond Garraty from Pownal, Maine, and a rotating group of fellow walkers whose motives range from noble to absolutely not. Cheery stuff.

Cast

• Cooper Hoffman (Licorice Pizza)
• David Jonsson (Alien: Romulus)
• Garrett Wareing (Ransom Canyon)
• Tut Nyuot (The Witcher: Blood Origin)
• Charlie Plummer (National Anthem)
• Ben Wang (American Born Chinese)
• Jordan Gonzalez (Pretty Little Liars: Summer School)
• Joshua Odjick (Welcome to Derry)
• Roman Griffin Davis (Jojo Rabbit)
• Judy Greer (the Halloween and Ant-Man franchises)
• Mark Hamill (Star Wars), who also recently worked on another King project, The Life of Chuck

Who is behind it

Lawrence produced through his company about:blank, alongside Roy Lee, Cameron MacConomy, and Steven Schneider. At Lionsgate, Meredith Wieck and Erin Jones-Wesley oversaw the project. The shoot took place in rural Manitoba, which makes sense once you picture how much road and weather this story needs.

Rating and content

It is rated R for strong bloody violence, grisly images, suicide, pervasive language, and sexual references. In other words: a faithful mood match to the book's premise.

If you are in for a relentless endurance thriller with a nasty edge (and some very good young actors), mark October 21 and queue it up.