Stephen King Slams Superhero Movie Violence as ‘Pornographic’

Stephen King recently spoke to The Times UK and criticized Hollywood’s superhero movies for often depicting baseless violence. In various Marvel and DC movies, entire cities are destroyed without the viewer seeing any actual harm to human life. King, whose dystopian horror novel “The Long Walk” gets the film adaptation treatment this month, does not agree with this approach to movie violence.

“If you look at these superhero movies, you’ll see some supervillain who’s destroying whole city blocks but you never see any blood,” King said. “And man, that’s wrong. It’s almost, like, pornographic… I said [for ‘The Long Walk’], if you’re not going to show it, don’t bother. And so they made a pretty brutal movie.”

Directed by “The Hunger Games” veteran Francis Lawrence and adapted by “Strange Darling” filmmaker JT Mollner, “The Long Walk” movie follows the same setup as King’s 1979 novel. Set in a dystopian United States, the story centers on a group of teenage boys who compete in the eponymous contest that requires them to walk at a certain speed or get killed. The film stars Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Judy Greer, Mark Hamill and more.

In a recent interview with Variety, Hoffman said the movie’s storyline required the actors to often walk “15 miles a day in 100-degree weather” during filming.

“There are moments where you’re forced to be method actors,” Hoffman said. “Whatever ‘method’ means to people. But we are walking. No one is faking that. And it is exhausting.”

“The Long Walk” opens in theaters Sept. 12 from Lionsgate.