Studios are moving ahead with any Stephen King property they can get their hands on following the titanic success of Warner Bros’ IT, and an under-appreciated 1979 novel is the latest to be picked up.
THR reports that James Vanderbilt (Zodiac, Independence Day: Resurgence, White House Down) has written an adaptation of King’s The Long Walk, which the author wrote under his Richard Bachman pseudonym. It was the first novel he wrote, although it would be published roughly five years after Carrie.
The story “is set in a future dystopian America ruled by an authoritarian. The country holds an annual walking contest in which 100 teens must journey, non-stop and under strict rules, until only one of them is still standing alive to receive the prize. The story told of a 16-year-old walker named Raymond Garraty and the teens — some good, some bad, some mysterious — in his orbit.”
The movie is set up at New Line (who also delivered IT), but there’s no director currently attached. THR notes that Vanderbilt and producer Bradley Fischer have been trying to get it made for over a decade, but the rights had been with noted King enthusiast Frank Darabont (The Mist, The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile).
Meanwhile, we’ve got James Wan making The Tommyknockers for Universal, Patrick Kolsch and Dennis Widmeyer remaking Pet Sematary for Paramount, and It: Chapter 2 currently casting…
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