Lionsgate brought Stephen King’s dystopian classic The Long Walk to Hollywood on Monday night, hosting a special screening at the Egyptian Theatre in partnership with Beyond Fest.
Stars Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Garrett Wareing, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang, Roman Griffin Davis, Jordan Gonzalez, Joshua Odjick, Judy Greer, and Mark Hamill were all in attendance, along with screenwriter JT Mollner and producer Roy Lee.
After the screening, the cast and creative team participated in a Q&A, giving fans an inside look at the making of the highly anticipated adaptation.
The Long Walk unfolds in a dystopian America where 50 teenage boys are forced to compete in a brutal endurance contest. The rules are simple but merciless: maintain a pace of three miles per hour without stopping. Fall below the limit more than three times, and you’re executed on the spot. The walk continues until only one boy remains, rewarded with a life of wealth and one wish.
Adapting King’s haunting story was no small feat, especially given its reputation among Constant Readers. Filmmakers have been trying to bring it to the screen for more than thirty years.
Mollner admitted he felt the pressure: “He [King] draws characters so well, and I knew that if I didn’t get the characters right, the movie wouldn’t work. … Thank God Stephen King liked the script because that was probably the scariest moment of my professional life.”
Mollner said that while characters had to be combined or trimmed to fit the runtime, the goal was for audiences to leave the theater feeling the same way they do after finishing the novel, like they’d just lost friends.
One of the boldest choices by director Francis Lawrence was shooting the movie in chronological order, a rarity in Hollywood. Cast members agreed that the decision elevated their performances.
“Everyone knows this movie was shot in sequence, which is, in all my years in the business, that’s unheard of,” Hamil said during the Q&A. “You see the progression of these young, fresh faces into the ravages that follow them. It’s incredible.”
Hoffman and Jonsson, who anchor the film’s emotional core, noted how the approach deepened their connection. “The perk of shooting chronologically was that you could afford to let what you know go because you felt it happen before,” Jonsson explained. “It was an absolute gift to feel that bond grow and then lose friends along the way, just like in the story.”
On the red carpet, Plummer described the experience as a “pinch-me moment” as both a fan of King and an actor.
“To hear that [King] was involved in the process, loves it, and wants people to see it—it’s so special. And then to hear that they didn’t want to do any blue screens or studio stuff, it was all in real time—we were going to really live it. I’ll never get to do anything like this again.”
The camaraderie extended beyond the screen. Plummer recalled grueling days in sweltering heat, layered in costumes, but said it brought the cast closer: “I started in theater and it did bring me back to kind of those beginnings … feeling like you’re really in the mud with people and you’re doing it for the love of it.”
Ben Wang also noted the film’s team spirit: “Cause of the way that we shot it, we all met each other on day one, and then we really had this journey together. And so what’s cool about that is that the relationships that we developed in real life and the friendships that we developed in real life, it translates in the film. You see it in the movie.”
Despite its brutal premise, cast members emphasized the humanity at the center of the story. Hamill, who plays the ominous Major, praised King’s layers: “He has your complete attention, and then he leads you to the real story, the heart and soul, which is this journey that these young men have. That’s where the humanity comes from.”
Greer added that much of her performance was already embedded in the writing. “The best scripts, you don’t have to do much…It was all on the page.”
Lee summed up the hope for audiences: “I was hoping it would give people the same feeling I had when I saw Stand By Me. … At the core, the most relatable and accessible thing to look at is love. This is all about relationships and how they matter more than anything you can work for your whole life.”
The Long Walk hits theaters Friday, September 12.
With its unique production approach, powerhouse cast, and fidelity to King’s original vision, The Long Walk is shaping up not just as a dystopian thriller, but as a meditation on friendship, survival, and what it means to be human.
Photo Credit: Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for Lionsgate
