Summary

Hunger Games director clarifies The Long Walk comparisons to emphasize different relationship dynamics.
Both stories feature young people forced into competitions that see them killed.
The Long Walk offers a setup where participants can't interfere, where the Hunger Games is a fight to the death.

Prolific Hunger Games franchise director Frances Lawrence wants to set the record straight on comparisons to his upcoming Stephen King adaptation The Long Walk. There have been five Hunger Games films to date, and Lawrence has directed four of them, with Seabiscuit director Gary Ross behind the first film. The films feature an annual contest where a boy and girl between the ages of 12 and 18 are sent from each district of a dystopian society to compete in the titular Hunger Games. The games see the tributes forced to kill each other off until only one remains, with the entire spectacle being a display of power from the totalitarian government.

The upcoming adaptation of Stephen King's The Long Walk features many similar story elements. It features a dystopian society that holds an annual contest that sees young men forced to walk, maintaining a certain speed, and if they fail to do so, they are shot and killed. The contest is eventually televised, and it acts as a display of power for the totalitarian government ruling over their society. Drawing natural comparisons to the Hunger Games franchise due to the dystopian society and competition featuring young people dying one by one, the director was cognizant of them when taking on the King adaptation.

Stephen King Calls Next Movie Adaptation 'Merciless', And It Has The Potential To Be His Bleakest Outing

Even Stephen King called his story in The Long Walk "Merciless," and it has the potential to be the author's bleakest adaptation to date.

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By Timothy McClelland

While speaking with Vanity Fair, Lawrence knew the comparisons to his franchise films could be evident, saying, "I'm, like, 'I don't want this to feel like The Hunger Games.' I'm really only interested in the emotional value of it. You want that impact." He was determined to make The Long Walk a very different film than his Hunger Games adaptations, noting the similarities in each story's stakes, but promising, "It's a very different dynamic, in terms of relationships." Read Lawrence's comments on the Hunger Games and The Long Walk below:

Anything that has a contest with death as the stakes, and some sort of big prize if you win, can be connected in some way. But in The Hunger Games, everybody's competing in a very different kind of way. There are alliances and you are trying to kill one another. Here, you're not actually trying to kill one another. It's a very different dynamic, in terms of relationships.

The Long Walk Is Due Out Later This Year, And Lawrence Isn't Done With The Hunger Games

The Long Walk is due to hit theaters in September, promising a story with a bleak setup that doesn't offer the same glitz and glam that surround the similarly horrific acts in the Hunger Games movies. With those in the Hunger Games getting potential sponsorships and fighting each other to survive, The Long Walks sees the participants simply walking together, with the rules making them unable to strike each other or generally interfere with each other in any way. Therefore, as Lawrence promises, the relationship dynamics are very different.

Lawrence also isn't done with the Hunger Games franchise, as the next installment, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, is due out in 2026. The movie is a prequel to the series, taking place 24 years before the events of The Hunger Games, showing the 50th Hunger Games, where Haymitch Abernathy, Katiniss and Peeta's mentor, with Jesse Plemons and McKenna Grace are set to star. While the Hunger Games franchise and The Long Walk differ in their approaches to bleak games played to the death, they prove Lawrence is drawn to dystopian societies and unique storytelling.