Francis Lawrence explains why his survival thriller and Stephen King adaptation,The Long Walk, is R-rated.The upcoming dystopian horror movie fromThe Hunger Gamesdirector revolves around an annual deadly contest where teens must maintain a minimum walking speed of three miles per hour to avoid being shot.
In an interview withCinemaBlend,Lawrence clarified whyThe Long Walkneeded to be rated R. The filmmaker stressed that he wasn’t going to hold back from the intensity and violence to capture the degradation in the book.A decision supported by King, Lawrence shared that he wanted to “be truthful” with the source material,warning potential viewers that the movie would be “a tough watch.”
Read Lawrence’s full comments below:
You need to make sure that you really feel the miles and the time. That you feel the degradation emotionally, psychologically, physically. That you feel the weather changes. I wasn’t going to buckle on that. I knew we were making a tough one. It doesn’t deserve to be PG-13; it deserves to be R. Stephen [King] also said it had to be an R.
To be truthful to the book, it has to be violent, intense, sad. It has to be a tough watch. Whether supporting the war thematics, the financial nihilism thematics, or the anti-violence thematics, it has to retain that intensity.
What Being R-Rated Means For The Long Walk
The Long Walk’s traileroffers a glimpse at some of the gruesome scenes the movie will feature. From the participants being mercilessly executed to someone struggling to walk on a broken ankle,the upcoming survival picture is significantly more explicit and distressful thanThe Hunger Games.
Published in 1979,King wroteThe Long Walkduring his high school and early college years. Against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, where the number of young men being killed was drastically rising,the sci-fi novel about young men voluntarily participating in an annual military contest that sends all but one to their graves ran parallel to what was happening in real life.
Lawrence’s big-screen adaptation, coming to theaters on Sept. 12, will be very faithful to the book.The movie received an R rating for strong bloody violence, grisly images, suicide, pervasive language, and sexual references. Previously, screenwriterJT Mollner shared thatThe Long Walkwas a passion project for Lawrence, and King was determined for theI Am Legendfilmmaker to make the movie as deeply disturbing as his book.
Our Take On The Long Walk’s Rating
Starring Cooper Hoffman, Ben Wang, David Jonsson, and Mark Hamill,The Long Walkisn’t holding back on its intensity, which is ultimately best for the narrative’s impact. WhileThe Hunger Gamesis a dystopian romance story that blends war commentary and escapism,the Stephen King adaptation leans more toward expressing political themes through deeper metaphors.
The Long Walkcould be Francis Lawrence’s most disturbing film to date, even if it doesn’t feature all the cringey, brutal scenes in King’s book. In a separate interview, the filmmaker admitted to having made some tweaks to certain things, but they reportedly had King’s approval (viaGamesRadar). It sounds like the movie’ssimilarities toThe Hunger Gamesend with the premise.
