Mark Hamill has two movies releasing in 2025, and the one big thing they have in common finally pays off a decades-long horror cameo. Mark Hamill’s acting career began in the 1970s on TV, with minor appearances in different TV shows, but he rose to fame with his first film role. In 1977, he starred in George Lucas’ Star Wars (now known as A New Hope), where he played Luke Skywalker. This was the role that boosted Hamill’s career and brought many opportunities for him, helping him become one of the most beloved actors of his generation.
Aside from his performances in the Star Wars saga, Hamill has explored a variety of genres throughout his career, including horror and drama. These two genres will be very present in Hamill’s career in 2025 thanks to his two upcoming live-action projects (as he’s part of the voice cast of The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants, also releasing this year), but there’s more to them. These movies have one big thing in common, and thanks to it, Hamill will be paying off a 33-year-old horror cameo.
Mark Hamill’s Next 2 Movies Are Both Stephen King Adaptations
Mark Hamill Is Part Of The Life of Chuck & The Long Walk
Mark Hamill’s next two movies are The Life of Chuck and The Long Walk, both Stephen King adaptations. First will come The Life of Chuck, based on the novella of the same name, found in the 2020 collection If It Bleeds. The novella is split into three acts, told in reverse chronological order, and it’s unclear if the movie will follow that same style. The Life of Chuck follows Chuck Krantz (Tom Hiddleston), an orphan who was raised by his paternal grandparents, who kept a big secret in the house’s locked cupola.
If It Bleeds also houses the novella Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, which was adapted into a movie in 2022.
The rest of the story sees Chuck at different points in his life, including his final days and the strange events around his death. Mark Hamill plays Albie Krantz, Chuck’s grandfather, and unlike what is expected from a Stephen King story, The Life of Chuck isn’t a horror story. Instead, The Life of Chuck is a drama movie described as a “life-affirming, genre-bending story”, and it’s scheduled for a June 6, 2025, release. Three months later, Hamill will return to the big screen in The Long Walk, based on the 1979 novel of the same name.
The Long Walk is set in a dystopian America ruled by a totalitarian regime. The story focuses on a 16-year-old boy named Ray Garraty, who takes part in the annual walking contest known as the “Long Walk.” This consists of 100 teenage boys walking without rest along U.S. Route 1, and each of them must stay above four miles per hour. If any of them drops their speed for 30 seconds, they get a warning, and after a third one, they are killed. Hamill plays the Major in The Long Walk, the man in charge of the walk.
Mark Hamill Had An Uncredited Cameo In A Stephen King Movie 33 Years Ago
It Was About Time Mark Hamill Had A Proper Role In A Stephen King Movie
While The Life of Chuck is the first time Mark Hamill has had a proper role in a Stephen King movie, this isn’t his first appearance in one. In 1992, King wrote the horror movie Sleepwalkers, directed by Mick Garris. Sleepwalkers follows Charles (Brian Krause) and Mary (Alice Krige), the last two survivors of a species of nomadic shapeshifting vampires who feed off the lifeforce of virgin women. Hamill has an uncredited cameo appearance in Sleepwalkers as Shrefiff Jenkins, right at the beginning of the movie.
Sleepwalkers was the first time Stephen King wrote a screenplay not adapted from one of his published works.
The Life of Chuck is giving Hamill his first proper role in a Stephen King movie, and it’s not a villainous one, though it’s to be seen how much screen time he will get. The Long Walk, on the other hand, will see Mark Hamill as a sinister antagonist, allowing the audience to see him in two very different roles within the universe of Stephen King.
