Interview: Cinematographer Jo Willems on The Long Walk

"Though 1974's Carrie marked Stephen King's first published novel, The Long Walks holds the distinction of being the earliest opus penned by the horror author. The story of a contest in which 100 teenagers march until only one is left alive, King began as a college freshman at the University of Maine in the late 1960s amid the Vietnam War and the looming threat of its televised draft."

"The film adaptation took an equally circuitous route to screens. George Romero first attempted to mount a version in the 1980s, frequent King adapter Frank Darabont developed the project in the mid-2000s and, most recently, André Øvredal worked on an iteration that fell apart in 2023. Director Francis Lawrence finally got The Long Walk across the cinematic finish line. Crossing it with him was his longtime collaborator Jo Willems."

The Long Walk was Stephen King's earliest novel, written while he was a college freshman at the University of Maine in the late 1960s amid the Vietnam War and televised draft fears. King submitted the manuscript to a Random House contest and received only a form letter, and the work sat unpublished until after his early best-sellers. The Long Walk was published in 1979 under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. The film adaptation endured multiple failed efforts by George Romero, Frank Darabont, and André Øvredal before Francis Lawrence completed it. Cinematographer Jo Willems shot the film entirely in sequence and relied on available light for many day exteriors.

Read at Filmmaker Magazine