The train of Stephen King adaptations just keeps on rolling, but this is a slightly different case. With Warner Bros. arm New Line picking the rights to the author's 1979 tome The Long Walk last year, the company has found a director to handle the film version. André Øvredal has the job.
James Vanderbilt has long been attached to write the script for the film, which draws from one of the tomes King published under the name Richard Bachman. It's set in a dystopian future America where the autocrat ruler has decreed that 100 teens a year must journey non-stop, under strict rules (certain speeds for one thing) in a walking contest only one is left alive. Our focus is on Raymond Garraty and some of the other teens in the competition who bond even as they suffer on the road.
As opposed to leaping on the current King bandwagon, Vanderbilt and producer Bradley Fischer have been trying to get this to screens for more than a decade. Frank Darabont had the rights for years, with Vanderbilt writing drafts of the script on spec knowing he didn't have the rights. Once Darabont let his option lapse, he leapt on the rights and took them to New Line.
Øvredal already has a horror adaptation on the way, as Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark will be out on 23 August. As for King-based films, It: Chapter 2 creeps in on 6 September.
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