👣 “Would you keep walking… if stopping meant death?”
That’s the haunting premise at the heart of the first trailer for The Long Walk has been released by Lionsgate. Based on the chilling dystopian novel by Stephen King (written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman), the trailer dares you to keep the pace… or be killed with a bullet to the head.
The Long Walk adaptation is directed by Francis Lawrence and if you are familiar with The Hunger Games, you know it’s going to be brutal and terrifying. In a dystopian world, a group of 100 teenage boys are forced into a deadly annual competition known as “The Long Walk,” where failure to maintain a minimum walking speed results in death by execution.
Set in a near-future America ruled by a totalitarian regime, the trailer opens in near silence, just the echo of footsteps on asphalt. A line of teenage boys, all wearing numbered tags, march down a desolate highway. No explanation. No music. Just the walk. Among the teenage contestants are, Raymond Garraty (Cooper Hoffman), Peter McVries (David Jonsson), and Hank Olson (Ben Wang). At first the mood seems pretty jovial among the lads as they walk accompanied by a parade of tanks. And just as you’re trying to figure out what’s going on… bang, a shot rings out. One boy drops. No ceremony. No hesitation. The rules are simple: keep walking. Fall below four miles an hour? You get a warning. Three warnings, and you’re out—permanently.The Major (Mark Hamill) explains the premise, including the fact that there will be “one winner, and no finish line.”
The trailer wastes no time setting the tone. It’s bleak, nerve-racking, and weirdly hypnotic. The cinematography leans into the oppressive atmosphere, with overcast skies, vast empty roads, and faces slowly unraveling from fear and fatigue. For the viewer, this feels like a psychological endurance test. The Long Walk is a monster of the mind. The trailer focuses on paranoia, desperation, and the chilling normalisation of violence. We get quick flashes of camaraderie and conflict between the boys, hinting at deeper character arcs.
There is prize money associated with this win, which some of the boys in the trailer are clearly very enticed by. To get there, though, they will have to undergo intense conditions and deadly consequences. The trailer smartly keeps dialogue to a minimum, relying on facial expressions and raw tension to do the talking. A few voiceovers hint at the world outside the walk. A government obsessed with control and spectators cheering on the carnage like a national sport. The question that then arises is , how far would you go to survive?
About The Long Walk
Synopsis: A group of teenage boys compete in an annual contest known as “The Long Walk,” where they must maintain a certain walking speed or get shot.
Genre: Horror • Science Fiction
Director: Francis Lawrence
Stars: Ben Wang • Mark Hamill • Garrett Wareing
Run Time: 1 Hour 30 Minutes
Release Date: September 12, 2025
