Before you take another step, be warned that this article contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the ending of The Long Walk. Based on the novel by Stephen King (under his pseudonym Richard Bachman), The Long Walk follows a group of teenage boys who compete in an annual contest in which they must walk continuously until only one remains standing. Anyone who can’t continue is shot.
Now, if you’ve seen The Long Walk, you already know that it changes the novel’s ending. In the book, Garraty, McVries, and Stebbins are the last three walkers, with Garraty ultimately being the last man standing. These three are still the final contestants in the movie, but it changes things up. Garraty (Cooper Hoffman) wants to avenge the death of his father, who was killed by the Major (Mark Hamill), the man who oversees the contest.
In the movie, Stebbins (Garrett Wareing) dies first, and Garraty convinces McVries (David Jonsson) to continue before sitting down and allowing himself to be executed. This leaves McVries as the winner. For his prize, he asks for a gun from one of the soldiers and uses it to kill the Major, fulfilling Garraty’s wish for vengeance.
Changing up the ending was nerve-wracking for director Francis Lawrence, who knew he had to pass it by Stephen King. “Luckily, he really liked the ending, I think, because we stayed true to its spirit,” Lawrence told Entertainment Weekly. “I think he was willing to go for it.”
Hamill was also nervous about what the author would say. “There’s a switch at the end as to who survives that’s so big I thought, ‘Uh oh!,’” he said. “And it turns out, Stephen King loved it! … But I was nervous because it’s not easy when you make a decision that doesn’t slavishly follow exactly the way the book was.“
As for why the change was made in the first place, Lawrence explained, “You don’t really want the guy who’s in it for vengeance to win, right? Because that’s really not what the story’s about. And I knew that people were really gonna love McVries. What I also loved about it was, just narratively, the idea that we open on a kid in a car and the audience is gonna be programmed to believe, clearly, here’s our winner. I love turning that on its head and going, ‘Guess what?! He’s not the winner.’“
The Long Walk is now playing in theaters, and you can check out a review from our own Chris Bumbray right here.
What did you think of the changes to the ending of The Long Walk?
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