Stephen King‘s dystopian thriller crosses the finish line, topping HBO Max’s streaming charts.
The iconic author is regarded as one of the greatest in horror and thriller stories, inspiring many adaptations over the last few decades. In fact, many have become classics, such as The Shawshank Redemption and Carrie. In just the last few years, King movies and series have become a hot trend, including The Life of Chuck, Salem’s Lot, and The Boogeyman. While some of his stories were adapted many times, one of his oldest novels received its cinematic version nearly five decades later.
King first wroteThe Long Walkin 1966, but the novel wasn’t published until 1977 under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Following decades-long challenges to the movie’s development, the cinematic iteration, directed by Hunger Games filmmaker Francis Lawrence, finally arrived in theaters in September 2025. Now, months after its release, The Long Walk landed on HBO Max and debuted at #1 on the movie streaming charts.
The cast of The Long Walk
The King movie overtook Lee Cronin’s The Mummy from the top spot, while the top 10 charts consist of Undertone (#3), How to Make a Killing (#4), Deadpool: The Supercut (#5), The Equalizer (#6), and Legally Blonde (#7). The Long Walk previously streamed on Starz earlier in the year before releasing on HBO Max on July 10.
The story follows a group of young boys who compete in a deadly walking competition until one remains standing. Despite being one of King’s most popular stories, a materialized adaptation took nearly five decades to step foot in theaters. Iconic horror director George A. Romero first attempted to develop the movie in 1988, but it was stalled. Then, nearly two decades later, Frank Darabont, who also adapted The Mist and The Green Mile, tested his luck to make The Long Walk to no avail.
Draft 1 · Bangor, Maine How Well Do You Know Stephen King? “They all float down here.”
🎈ITYou’ll float too
🪓ShiningAll work and no play
🔨MiseryI’m your number one fan
🏰Dark TowerThe gunslinger followed
⛓ShawshankGet busy living
01
King was a high school English teacher in Hampden, Maine, living in a trailer with no phone, when Doubleday paid him a $2,500 advance for his first hardcover novel in 1973. He’d thrown the opening pages in the trash; his wife Tabitha fished them out and told him to keep going. What was the book?
✓ Correct! Carrie. Doubleday paid a $2,500 hardcover advance in 1973, and the paperback rights sold to Signet for $400,000 — King’s half ($200,000) let him quit teaching. He always credits Tabitha with saving the manuscript from the trash. Brian De Palma’s 1976 film adaptation with Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie earned two Oscar nominations and cemented King as a screen-adaptation goldmine from day one.
✗ Wrong page. The answer is Carrie, published April 5, 1974. ‘Salem’s Lot came next in 1975, The Shining in 1977, The Stand in 1978. Tabitha King rescued the Carrie opening from the trash, insisted he finish it, and the $400,000 Signet paperback deal that followed — split 50/50 with Doubleday — is what finally let him leave teaching.
02
In the late 1970s, publishers believed no author could release more than one book a year without saturating the market. So King invented a pseudonym and published five novels under it — including The Long Walk, The Running Man, and Thinner — before a Washington bookstore clerk outed him in 1985. What was the pen name?
✓ Correct! Richard Bachman. King took the first name from Richard Stark (Donald Westlake’s pseudonym) and the last from Bachman-Turner Overdrive playing on the car stereo. Steve Brown, a Washington D.C. bookstore clerk, cross-checked copyright filings at the Library of Congress and phoned King. Rather than deny it, King wrote a mock obituary declaring Bachman had died of “cancer of the pseudonym.”
✗ Wrong byline. The answer is Richard Bachman — a pseudonym King used for Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork, The Running Man and Thinner between 1977 and 1985. Peter Straub is a real author and King’s co-writer on The Talisman and Black House. John Swithen was a one-off alias for a 1972 short story. Gordon Lachance is the narrator character in The Body (filmed as Stand By Me).
03
King wrote The Shining (1977) after a one-night stay at the then-closing Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, in the fall of 1974. He and Tabitha were the only guests, and a dream about his son being chased down a corridor gave him the entire novel. The fictional haunted hotel is called…
✓ Correct! The Overlook Hotel. The Kings checked into room 217 on the last night of the Stanley’s 1974 season; Tabitha fell asleep and Stephen dreamed about his three-year-old son Joe being pursued by a fire hose. He woke up with most of the novel in his head. The Stanley has been milking the connection ever since — and in 1997 King adapted his own novel for a TV miniseries filmed there, as a partial corrective to Kubrick’s film.
✗ Wrong floor. The answer is The Overlook. The real-world Stanley Hotel in Estes Park inspired it — King stayed in room 217 on the last night of the 1974 season and had the fire-hose nightmare that became the book. The Dolphin is a later King hotel (1408). The Bates Motel is Psycho. The Stanley itself is the real place, not the fictional one, though it’s leaned into the association ever since.
04
In IT (1986), the shape-shifting entity the Losers’ Club calls Pennywise the Dancing Clown emerges from the sewers every 27 years to feed on children. The novel — and Andy Muschietti’s 2017/2019 films — are set in a fictional Maine town that also shows up in Insomnia, Dreamcatcher, and 11/22/63. Name it.
✓ Correct! Derry. Loosely modeled on Bangor, Maine, where King lives. Derry recurs across IT, Insomnia, Dreamcatcher, 11/22/63 and parts of the Dark Tower series. Castle Rock is King’s other signature Maine town (The Dead Zone, Cujo, Needful Things). Jerusalem’s Lot is from ‘Salem’s Lot. Chester’s Mill is the setting of Under the Dome.
✗ Wrong sewer. The answer is Derry — King’s Bangor-coded fictional town, the setting of IT (1986), Insomnia (1994), Dreamcatcher (2001) and 11/22/63 (2011). Castle Rock is a different King town (Cujo, The Dead Zone, Needful Things) and Jerusalem’s Lot is where the vampires show up. But Pennywise’s home is always Derry.
05
The 1990 film of Misery, adapted by William Goldman and directed by Rob Reiner, won its lead actress the Best Actress Oscar for playing obsessed “number one fan” Annie Wilkes — still the only acting Oscar ever won for a Stephen King adaptation. Who was it?
✓ Correct! Kathy Bates — winning Best Actress at the March 1991 Oscars for Misery. Bates later came back for King adaptations Dolores Claiborne (1995) and The Stand (1994 miniseries). It remains the only Academy Award for acting in any screen adaptation of a Stephen King book; Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie both got nominations for Carrie, but neither won.
✗ Wrong fan. The answer is Kathy Bates, who won Best Actress at the 1991 Academy Awards for Misery. Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie were both nominated for Carrie in 1977 but lost. Jessica Lange has been nominated and won for other films, but not for any King adaptation. Bates’s hobbling scene with the sledgehammer is still routinely voted one of the most terrifying moments in horror cinema.
06
The Shawshank Redemption (1994) — regularly voted the greatest film of all time on IMDb — is adapted from a King novella called “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.” The same 1982 collection also contains the novellas that became Stand By Me and Apt Pupil. What is the collection called?
✓ Correct! Different Seasons (1982) — four novellas, three of them adapted into major films: Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption became The Shawshank Redemption (1994), The Body became Stand By Me (1986), and Apt Pupil became the 1998 Bryan Singer film. The fourth, The Breathing Method, is the only one never filmed. Different Seasons is the most-adapted single King book in Hollywood history.
✗ Wrong shelf. The answer is Different Seasons (1982). Night Shift (1978) is an earlier horror-story collection. Skeleton Crew (1985) contains The Mist and The Jaunt. Four Past Midnight (1990) has The Langoliers and Secret Window. But three of the four novellas in Different Seasons — Shawshank, Stand By Me, Apt Pupil — all became celebrated films, making it arguably the single most cinematically influential King book.
07
King started writing his sprawling magnum opus in 1970 as a college student and finally published the eighth and final volume in 2012. The first line — “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed” — introduces a hero inspired by Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name. What’s the gunslinger’s name?
✓ Correct! Roland Deschain of Gilead, last of his line. The Dark Tower series — eight novels plus The Wind Through the Keyhole — is King’s spine work, connecting dozens of his other books (The Stand, Salem’s Lot, Insomnia, Hearts in Atlantis, IT) into one multiverse. Randall Flagg is the series’ recurring villain, Jake Chambers is the boy Roland meets, and Ted Brautigan is a Low Men minor character.
✗ Wrong ka-tet. The answer is Roland Deschain. Randall Flagg is the recurring King villain who crosses from The Stand into the Dark Tower (he’s the “man in black” fleeing across the desert in the famous opening). Jake Chambers is the young boy Roland picks up in The Gunslinger. Ted Brautigan is a minor Breaker in Hearts in Atlantis. Roland alone is the king of Gilead’s son.
08
King has three children. His daughter Naomi is a Unitarian minister. His younger son Owen is a novelist. His older son is a bestselling horror writer in his own right — author of Heart-Shaped Box, Horns, NOS4A2, and The Fireman — and spent his early career using a pseudonym to hide the family connection. What name does he publish under?
✓ Correct! Joe Hill — a shortening of his real name, Joseph Hillström King. He used the pseudonym for a decade so his work would be judged on its own merits and not marketed as “son-of.” His 2004 short-story collection 20th Century Ghosts and 2007 debut novel Heart-Shaped Box made his reputation before the family connection became public. He and his father have also co-written a handful of novellas including In the Tall Grass.
✗ Wrong branch. The answer is Joe Hill — pen name of Joseph Hillström King. Paul Tremblay (A Head Full of Ghosts, The Cabin at the End of the World) is a separate contemporary horror novelist. Josh Malerman wrote Bird Box. Grady Hendrix wrote Horrorstor and My Best Friend’s Exorcism. Joe Hill hid the King connection for about a decade so his career would stand on its own.
Final Draft · Put Down the Pen Your Constant Reader Status
✍
/ 8
Constant Reader — or still stuck in Derry?
The key challenge was trying to find the right balance between the story’s slow pacing and monotone. Finally, Lawrence helmed the project after directing several Hunger Games movies, which also followed a similar dystopian story of a deadly game. The Long Walk cast featured rising stars, such as Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Garrett Wareing, Tut Nyuot, Charlie Plummer, and Ben Wang.
The long wait to adapt the dystopian thriller was worthwhile, becoming a box-office and critical success for Lionsgate. Reviews of The Long Walk were very positive, with critics praising the emotional weight of the brotherhood, the cast performances, and faithfulness to King’s original story. It ultimately earned an 88% critics’ score and an 85% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In addition, The Long Walk performed well in theaters, earning $63 million globally against a $20 million budget.
While the dystopian thriller jumps onto HBO Max’s charts, more King adaptations are on the way. Mike Flanagan’s Carrie series is expected to be released in October 2026, while The Institute season 2 just wrapped filming. Meanwhile, projects like The Mist and The Dark Tower are still in development.
