Stephen King has had a massively successful year, and he has one more movie coming out with the Richard Bachman-penned The Running Man. This year alone saw King release a new novel, Never Flinch, while four films and two streaming series were released based on his work. Two of the movies were based on his Richard Bachman books.
The four movies released in 2025 included two based on short stories, The Monkey and The Life of Chuck, and two from the Bachman books, The Long Walk and The Running Man. He also had a streaming series based on The Institute and a prequel to It. With two successful Bachman movies in 2025, here is the next Bachman story Hollywood needs to adapt.
Running Man & The Long Walk Opens Door For Roadwork
The two best Richard Bachman adaptations arrived in 2025. While The Running Man is a cult favorite among Arnold Schwarzenegger fans, the new Edgar Wright movie is more faithful to the source material and is a better movie overall. Thinner was a low-budget horror movie that most people have already forgotten about.
However, The Long Walk was a dark thriller with incredible acting and intense scenes. The new version of The Running Man is an explosive action movie that hits on every level. It is time to capitalize on the Richard Bachman interest to finally turn Roadwork into a film. However, fans need to understand that this is a very different story.
Stephen King published Roadwork under the Richard Bachman pseudonym in 1981, shortly after his mother died. His mom died of cancer the year before, and he was trying to make sense of it, which is when he wrote this tragic story. In the intro to The Bachman Books, he wrote:
“Roadwork tries so hard to be good and find some answers to the conundrum of human pain.“
The story follows a man named Barton George Dawes, who is angry that the city is planning a new highway extension. This becomes even worse when he learns the project will run through his property and, under eminent domain law, he is being forced to sell his house and move. Since his son died of a brain tumor three years earlier, Dawes has memories tied to his home.
As a result, he decides to fight this, and when he can’t legally do anything about it, he finally chooses violence. What results is a story dealing with trauma and how one man’s loss can destroy him, especially in a world that doesn’t care about anything other than making more money.
Roadwork also has more than a touch of government corruption running throughout the storyline, and it should play well today. However, unlike most Stephen King movies, this is an adult drama, and it would be harder to sell than something like The Running Man or even The Long Walk.
Roadwork Is Very Different From Other Stephen King Stories
The Long Walk was one of the most anticipated Stephen King adaptations, as fans had been waiting years for it to reach the big screen. Names as varied as George A. Romero and Frank Darabont wanted to direct it, and it has been passed around since 1988. However, it wasn’t until this year that it was made by The Hunger Games director, Francis Lawrence.
Before this, the only Richard Bachman books to be adapted into movies were the 80s action flick The Running Man and the 90s low-budget horror film Thinner. Neither film made a mark, though The Running Man is a cult favorite in some circles, even though it has almost nothing to do with King’s original story beyond the contest itself.
That said, Roadwork is different from almost every other Stephen King story under the Richard Bachman pseudonym. The Running Man is an action thriller, Thinner is pure horror, Rage is a high school drama, and The Long Walk is a dystopian thriller. However, Roadwork is a straight drama with some very dark subject matter.
This is a slow-burning drama about one man who seemingly finds himself alone, fighting against a corrupt system that has all the resources in the world in its pocket. It is also, above all else, about trauma. It looks a little similar to a movie like Michael Douglas’s Falling Down, but Dawes doesn’t really snap here. He just stands his ground.
It would take a special actor who understands the nuances of Dawes’ character to play him straight and keep him sympathetic to the tragic end. It also needs a director who understands that this is not a thriller and that it is a story that needs to play out evenly. Look at Frank Darabont’s work on Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile as where to start.
Stephen King Calls Roadwork His Favorite Bachman Story
What is interesting is how the story has grown over the years since its publication. In his introduction to The Bachman Books, Stephen King said he didn’t like the story for years. It reminded him of his own trauma, and he felt it wasn’t a good story outside that trauma. He has since changed his mind.
In the introduction of the original release of the Bachman Books as a collection, King said he wrote Roadwork between ‘Salem’s Lot and The Shining, and he wanted to prove that he could write something “serious.” He then said that, at the time, he believed Roadwork was the “worst of the lot.”
However, in the newer release, there is also a new introduction, and he changed his tune. Now, Stephen King says that Roadwork is his “favorite of the early Bachman books,” without explaining his change of opinion. However, King is right. Roadwork is a fantastic story, and it should be the next Richard Bachman movie.
