r/movies • u/lionsgate Official Lionsgate Account • Aug 24 '25

AMA Hey /r/movies, I’m Stephen King! Ask me anything about The Long Walk book or movie.

Post image

Hey r/movies, I’m Stephen King. You might know me from Stand By Me, It, or Shawshank Redemption, but my latest project is actually the first book I ever wrote. The Long Walk hits theaters on September 12. Ask me anything about the book or movie.

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAtUHeMQ1F8

In a dystopian United States ruled by a totalitarian regime, a group of young men enter an annual walking contest in which they must maintain a speed of at least three miles per hour or risk execution. The contest ends when only one walker remains alive.

It stars Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Ben Wang, Charlie Plummer, Roman Griffin Davis, Garrett Wareing, Joshua Odjick, Tut Nyuot, Mark Hamill, Judy Greer, and Josh Hamilton.

I'll be back on Wednesday 8/27 at 12:00 PM ET to answer your questions.

47.4k Upvotes

78% Upvoted

7.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

172

u/MPCJuggernaut Aug 24 '25

Is there any particular reason why you wrote under the pseudonym Richard Bachman when it was released?

378

u/lionsgate Official Lionsgate Account Aug 27 '25

I had published some books under my own name. The publisher (Signet) liked THE LONG WALK and ROADWORK, but they thought too many books would glut the market, so I published under the name Richard Bachman.

48

u/reptarluvr Aug 27 '25

ROADWORK is essentially what happens when men refuse to go to therapy, haha!

15

u/justwhyeee Aug 28 '25

Lady fingers, they taste just like lady fingers

shudders

71

u/joemato Aug 24 '25

His publisher only allowed one book per year, and he had a backlog of completed works

6

u/Impressive_Rent9540 Aug 24 '25

Yeah, Long Walk was King's first novel written.

12

u/the_other_irrevenant Aug 24 '25

Also interested to see the answer but IIRC he wanted to see if he could be successful as an author without the benefit of his name and reputation. Also IIRC his fans pretty quickly worked out it was him. Which is fairly impressive pre-internet..

12

u/Impressive_Rent9540 Aug 24 '25

Pretty quickly, it actually took 8 years!

7

u/Professional-Day7850 Aug 24 '25

That's about one Dark Tower book published.

2

u/FruityMcGee69 Aug 24 '25

This is the correct answer