There is a brutal Stephen King thriller that is coming to HBO Max, and fans can see it on streaming starting in July. For many years, The Long Walk was a King story that directors wanted to make, but few were able to break. This is an even more impressive distinction when realizing that one of the directors who wanted to make this book into a movie was none other than Frank Darabont, the man who directed three of the best King adaptations ever made: The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist. In 2026, a director finally cracked the story, and HBO Max subscribers will be able to see it soon.
The Long Walk will hit HBO Max on July 10th, following its streaming debut on Starz. The movie is only two weeks away from its biggest streaming audience yet.
The Long Walk had an interesting start. When published in 1979, no one knew this was a Stephen King novel. Instead, this was one of the books that King published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. This was during a time when King wanted to prove he could write something other than horror and still find an audience. The books included Rage (1977), The Long Walk (1979), Roadwork (1981), The Running Man (1982), and Thinner (1984) before the identity was discovered. King has since released two more books under the name, with The Regulators (1996) and Blaze (2007).
The Running Man and Thinner both got made into movies in the past, but in 2026, the Richard Bachman name experienced a resurgence in popularity. In that year alone, The Running Man received a remake, and The Long Walk was finally made. Both of those movies will stream on HBO Max starting in July. While The Running Man is already there, The Long Walk is coming soon. It is also something that has been a long time coming.
In 1988, George A. Romero was planning to direct the movie. Romero had worked with King in the past on Creepshow, and he had big ideas for the film. Seeing how Romero dealt with social class issues in his zombie movies, he likely had a plan on how to tell this dystopian tale. The story is similar to The Hunger Games, where kids are chosen to compete in a contest for the world to watch, and all but one of the kids will die. It is dark, and it existed long before The Hunger Games or even Battle Royale was released.
After Romero, it went to Frank Darabont, who secured the rights in 2007. While he directed three great King movies and helped bring The Walking Dead to TV, he wasn’t able to get it made. After this, it went to André Øvredal (The Autopsy of Jane Doe) and then finally to Francis Lawrence, who directed The Hunger Games. That is when the movie was made, and it ended up as a box office ($63.1 million on a $20 million budget) and critical (88% on Rotten Tomatoes) success. Now, HBO Max subscribers can see it for themselves.
What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
