The team behind the 2025 movie adaptation of Stephen King’s The Long Walk worked with the legendary author on their plans, and the producer revealed that King had one note when he read the script, resulting in a key change. The King of Horror is known for his namesake genre, but more than once, he has ventured into dystopian fiction.
The Long Walk’s story is about a group of teenage boys who compete in the тιтular compeтιтion, where they must maintain a certain walking speed indefinitely. Those who fall behind are sH๏τ, until there is only one left. After many plans that never came to fruition, 2025 will see the first feature film adaptation of The Long Walk.
Adapting this seminal piece of literature properly was a task the crew took very seriously, and the script was sent to King for review. In an interview with ScreenRant‘s Joe Deckelmeier, The Long Walk producer Roy Lee said that King “only had one note from when we gave him the script,” regarding the compeтιтion’s mandatory pace.
King decided in retrospect that it wasn’t realistic for the characters to maintain a speed of four miles per hour for the duration of the story, resulting in the change clearly established in the marketing of it being three miles per hour. Check out Lee’s full comment on this below:
EXCLUSIVE: Stephen only had one note from when we gave him the script. He’s like, “Can you change it from 4 miles per hour to 3?” Because that’s what was written in the book. He goes, “There’s no way that you could walk 4 miles an hour for that long.” That was the only initial note when he gave back. The ending was what it is, and he was like, “I love it. But I think you need to reduce the speed.”
What Stephen King’s Note Means for The Long Walk
The change in the walking speed won’t have any major impact on the plot of The Long Walk; it just moderately improves its believability. Many of the comments made about the filmmakers refusing to make changes to The Long Walk‘s source material have to do with it having the harrowing impact it was meant to.
This alteration actually lends itself to the same goal by helping the audience better buy into the premise. Viewers will more likely believe that the average young person in decent physical shape could maintain this walking speed for some time before the inevitable horrors begin. Thus, they can better understand the characters’ frame of mind and why they took this chance.
Our Take On Stephen King’s Requested Change To The Long Walk
On the other hand, this factoid reveals some insight into the writing process and how authors, even those as talented and famous as Stephen King, look back on their past iconic works. King published The Long Walk in 1979 under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, but actually initially wrote it more than 10 years earlier, making it the first novel he ever penned.
While King appears to mostly stand by The Long Walk and approves of the way it has been adapted, he had a different perspective on the realism of this plot point that he possibly came up with while he was in high school. Four miles per hour isn’t a particularly fast speed either, but King decided to make the feat just a bit easier before it becomes impossible.
