The Long Walk is Francis Lawrence’s adaptation of Stephen King’s dystopian novel. The film was released on September 12th, 2025, and has already reached a major milestone—the week the film surpassed Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining in global box office revenue. According to Screen Rant, almost a month after the film was released, it has earned nearly $51 million worldwide, positioning it as the 18th highest-grossing Stephen King adaptation to date.
The film was produced on a lower budget of $20 million. The Long Walk is a relatively smaller-scale production compared to recent blockbuster horror films. In comparison, Stephen King’s highest-grossing films are the It duology; It (2017) had a budget of $35 million, while the sequel had double the budget of the original. The Long Walk had a consistent commercial performance and marked a significant success. While King wrote darker plots, The Long Walk highlighted themes such as friendship and focused on emotional depth while commenting on themes of war, authoritarianism, and state-sanctioned violence. The film’s worldwide revenue has now surpassed The Running Man (1987), which made $48 million, placing it just above The Shining. While the impact of The Shining has been lasting, its box office returns were far lower.
While the movie’s financial performance may seem modest, it underscores the enduring appeal of King’s storytelling across generations. The novel was written under a pseudonym chosen by King, Richard Bachman. The film and novel are meant to construct a dystopian yet realistic setting grounded in the 1970s, deliberately portraying the authoritarian anxieties and moral conflicts surrounding the Vietnam War as a critique of state power and conformity. With a character-driven narrative, 50 teenage boys are forced to walk until only one remains alive. Translating the novel to the big screen was challenging; however, Lawrence’s adaptation has had an impact with fans of King’s early work and new audiences drawn to its political commentary as well as its dystopian themes.
While The Long Walk has not reached the top of King’s film hierarchy, It (2017) remains the highest-grossing King film with more than $700 million worldwide, followed by It: Chapter Two (2019) at over $473 million. The Long Walk’s performance demonstrates that lower-budget, emotional adaptations can still resonate with people even in today’s franchise-dominated film landscape. Ultimately, the film reminds us that Stephen King’s narratives are successful because they reach across extremes—from the gruesome spectacle of It to the aching humanity at the heart of The Long Walk.
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