The screenwriter behind this year’s Stephen King adaptation The Long Walk recalls how reading Carrie at age seven earned him a trip to the principal’s office, but also helped shape him as a writer.
King has indeed been important to many a writer, and many a reader, since emerging as the master of horror back in the 1970s. Most of King’s important works have received film and/or TV adaptations over the years, often made by people who were influenced by King’s books as children.
One exception was The Long Walk, King’s dystopian novel, published in 1979 under his Richard Bachman pseudonym. But that oversight is now being rectified, as 2025 sees the long-awaited release of a movie based on King’s fan-favorite Bachman book.
Speaking to ScreenRant’s Ash Cossan at this year’s SDCC, The Long Walk’s screenwriter J.T. Mollner talked about his own personal connection to King’s works, detailing how his first experience with the author got him in H๏τ water at school, but also got him into writing, thanks in part to his understanding mom:
I’ve been a constant reader since I was a little kid. I read Carrie, it was my first adult novel that I ever read. Believe it or not, I was in second grade, I was seven, and I was allowed to buy it off a rack, a used book rack at a place called Bart’s Books in Ojai when I was on vacation.
I took it into my classroom and I was just inching my way through it. I didn’t understand a lot of it, but I was obsessed with the cover, and how Stephen King’s name was bigger than the тιтle, and the image that’s there. [Chuckles] It was just iconic. And I got through the book, but I also got sent to the principal’s office for having it.
And my mom showed up and said, “I don’t let my kid watch rated-R movies or anything like that, but I’m never ever going to tell him not to read.” So that was inspiring to me, and I kept reading Stephen King. So, he’s been a major part of my formative process as a writer. And I notice, even, things in my style when I write prose, or when I write screenplays, that echo Stephen King’s style. I think it’s just because I grew up learning how to write by reading him, so I think it was a good fit.
What This Means For The Long Walk
Mollner’s Adaptation Is True To The Source Material
It should be apparent from Mollner’s story that he has deep respect for King’s works, and because of this, he approached writing The Long Walk with a sense of duty to the source material, and a desire to stick as closely as possible to the original book.
George Romero was originally approached to adapt The Long Walk way back in 1988.
King himself was on-board with making the movie as faithful as possible to the Bachman novel, something that Mollner said, in the same interview with ScreenRant from SDCC, made his job a lot easier:
Sometimes the idea of writing for someone else can be nightmarish. This time, it was a dream. He wanted to go all the way. King wanted us to go all the way. I knew we could be honest and faithful. If this got into the hands of the wrong studio or filmmaker, it could have lost it […] it has teeth.
The Long Walk‘s trailer confirms it is indeed a brutal story, made all the more powerful because its horrors are inflicted on children. Reflecting the full impact of the book required a writer who would not shy away from the story’s tougher moments, and it seems Mollner was the perfect person to take on that task.
Our Take On Mollner’s Life-Long King Love
The Long Walk Was Penned By A True Fan
Many writers and directors can claim to have been fans of King from childhood, but few of them can say they risked getting in trouble at school just to read one of his novels. Mollner’s legitimacy as a King fan can’t be questioned, after his revelation that he got sent to the principal’s office for reading Carrie.
Seven is probably too young to be reading something as intense as Carrie, and Mollner admits he didn’t really understand a lot of it. But the screenwriter was lucky to have a mother who not only encouraged him to read, but was willing to stick up for him when that reading got him into some H๏τ water.
Mollner’s mom is indeed the real hero of the story. All these years later, her son gets to pay his favorite author back by helping finally bring The Long Walk to life. Those who’ve loved the book for decades can rest ᴀssured that the adaptation was penned by someone who has been reading King almost his entire life.
