20 Recent Horror Movies That Made ONE Big Mistake

Considering that Stephen King's dystopian novel The Long Walk was long deemed "unfilmable" by many, it's frankly miraculous that Francis Lawrence's adaptation gets so, so much right.

But it's definitely a shame for fans of King's source material that a number of dubious changes were made to the story's ending.

In the book, Pete (David Jonsson) decides to sit down and die, leaving Ray (Cooper Hoffman) and the seemingly unstoppable Stebbins (Garrett Wareing) to duke it out.

However Stebbins suddenly falls over dead, leaving Ray the winner, who then ignores The Major (Mark Hamill) and continues walking, following a dark figure he believes to be another walker.

It's a hauntingly ambiguous ending and, admittedly, a tough one to adapt wholesale, but the new ending cooked up by screenwriter JT Mollner just feels a little too Hollywood by comparison.

In the new ending, Stebbins dies first before Ray and Pete's fates are effectively swapped, leaving Pete the winner. 

But rather than walk past the Major, Pete asks for a rifle and shoots the Major dead before continuing to walk along a now-empty street. 

While there are certainly plausible theories that Pete has actually been killed in the final moments of the film - hence the suddenly empty streets - him killing the Major just feels a bit hokey and crowd-pleasing compared to the rest of the film, like something the studio insisted upon in exchange for all the grim violence leading up to it.

It's still a highly accomplished adaptation, but loses a little of its shine in the final few minutes.