Stephen King’s ‘The Long Walk’ Bombs At Box Office Following Charlie Kirk Comments: 33-Year Low

Cosmic Book News ^ | September 14, 2025 | Matt McGloin

[Morgana]

The Stephen King movie, The Long Walk, absolutely bombs at the box office, coming in fourth this weekend. By my count, it’s the lowest opening for a King movie in 33 years.

On Thursday, King received massive backlash for comments about Charlie Kirk, who was killed on Wednesday. The alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson, is described as a leftist in a relationship with another man transitioning to a transgender woman.

King deleted the tweets and apologized for his comments.

It’s unknown if the controversy impacted The Long Walk, which was put out by Lionsgate this weekend. The studio suffers yet another blow following Ballerina massively bombing, as well. Back in August, it was reported that Lionsgate suffered a massive $59.4 million loss compared to the year prior. stephen king charlie kirk Screenshot via X The Long Walk box office numbers

Stephen King’s The Long Walk, directed by Hunger Games‘ Francis Lawrence, comes in at fourth place this weekend with an estimated $11.5 million, domestically. The early estimates were as high as $20 million.

It’s beaten by Downton Abbey: Grand Finale ($19.5M), The Conjuring: The Last Rites in its second weekend ($27M), and Demon Slayer… Infinity Castle crushes all competition with an estimated $70M opening.

The Long Walk also stars Mark Hamill, who is no stranger to his own controversial remarks coming from the left.

Reviews are good

The flick does have good reviews as the Rotten Tomatoes Score from critics stands at 90%. The Audience Score is currently at 86% from those who purchased tickets through the Fandango app (all other reviews don’t count).

However, the CinemaScore is only a “B.” The Long Walk Trailer Drops: Stephen King’s Brutal Contest Hits the Screen The budget and break even number

At least The Long Walk didn’t cost much, coming in at a reported $20 million. If that’s the case, the flick will only need to make around $50 million to break even, which will likely depend on how well it does internationally.

However, Doctor Sleep released in 2019 opened higher at over $14 million and only finished with $72.3M. The Monkey, released back in February, also only opened to $14M and ended with $68.8M. So we see with The Long Walk, there isn’t much breathing room.

King’s previous lowest opening, again by my count, was Pet Sematary 2, released back in 1992, which adjusted for inflation opened to $11.1M. What is The Long Walk about?

The Long Walk follows 100 teenage boys forced into a brutal contest where stopping means death. Each walker must maintain a pace of at least three miles per hour; fall short and they receive a warning. Three warnings, and they’re executed on the spot. The march only ends when a single boy remains alive.

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TOPICS: TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: notalenthack; socialparasite; stephenking; thelongwalk

[Fledermaus]

Worse one was the truck with a green goblin mask.

[woodbutcher1963]

The fact is that King has not written anything decent in at least 40 years. Some of his early books were masterpieces. Many of which were made into movies that did extremely well. Like The Stand, The Shining, The Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption, Carrie, Salem's Lot, Pet Semetary, IT, etc.

I can not think of anything he has written in the last 30 years that was worth reading. Unfortunately, like so many celebrities he should know better than to open his mouth and spew his liberal platitudes.

You would think that these people would have learned from Michael Jordan when he said that Republicans buy sneakers too. Why alienate half of your potential customer base. It's bad for business.

[Persevero]

Possibly my favorite King story. Up there with Misery and Stand By Me.

Don’t like most of his stuff but those were excellent.

Don’t plan on seeing the film.

[mowowie]

That was around the time that I started realizing that the books I was reading with his name on them not actually written by him.
I could just tell by the style of the writing.
At the time I suspected his wife as the writer but I dunno..

[tumblindice]

I started thinking that too about the time of Lisey’s Story and Duma Key.
Both were absolute stinkers.