MOVIE NEWS – On September 11, The Long Walk will hit theaters, and critics already hail it as the best Stephen King adaptation ever made. To mark its U.S. premiere, audience heart rates were monitored with surprising results.

Although The Long Walk was published in 1979 (under King’s pseudonym Richard Bachman), he had already started writing it around 1966, when he was just 19 and studying at the University of Maine—eight years before the release of his first published novel, Carrie.

Directed by Francis Lawrence, best known for The Hunger Games films, the adaptation depicts America under a totalitarian regime. Each year, the system organizes “The Long Walk,” where 50 young men must march continuously at three miles per hour—anyone who stops is executed—until only one participant survives.

To coincide with its American premiere, audience heart rates were measured with astonishing results. While the average human heart rate is 70–80 beats per minute, during the film’s first 20 minutes this figure spiked to 2.5 times the normal pace and stayed elevated for another 40 minutes. At the climax, heart rates soared above 200, equivalent to that of a fighter pilot enduring 9G forces.

The Long Walk is directed by Francis Lawrence, whose credits also include The Hunger Games saga, Constantine, I Am Legend, and Red Sparrow, which was shot in Hungary. Alongside the legendary Mark Hamill, the cast features rising talents such as Cooper Hoffman (Licorice Pizza), David Jonsson (Alien: Romulus), Joshua Odjick (IT: Welcome to Derry), Charlie Plummer (The Return), Ben Wang (Karate Kid: Legends), Roman Griffin Davis (Jojo Rabbit), and Garrett Wareing (Ransom Canyon).

Source: ADS