Stephen King’s latest film adaptation, The Long Walk, is a box office flop in its first week amid his comments falsely accusing assassinated conservative hero Charlie Kirk of wanting to stone gay people to death.
The Long Walk, featuring rabid Trump and Republican hater Mark Hamill, is struggling this week after opening on September 12. So far, it has only earned an anemic $11 million, according to Box Office Mojo. King is listed as an executive producer on the film.
King’s latest box office bomb coincided with a firestorm the author kicked up by pushing lies about Charlie Kirk right after the activist was murdered on Sept. 10 at a college in Utah.
On the same Wednesday of Kirk’s assassination, King jumped to his X account and delivered a veiled justification for Kirk’s murder, and wrote, “He advocated stoning gays to death. Just sayin.’”
This has been a popular calumny by liberals. But it isn’t true. Charlie Kirk never advocated for gays to be stoned to death.
King later apologized and deleted his post and told fans that he was wrong about what he claimed Kirk said. But the harm was already done.
“I apologize for saying Charlie Kirk advocated stoning gays,” he wrote. “What he actually demonstrated was how some people cherry-pick Biblical passages.”
King also several times replied to other X users that he had apologized and admitted he was wrong.
“This is what I get for reading something on Twitter w/o fact-checking. Won’t happen again,” he said in response to a Ted Cruz post.
The apology didn’t cut it for many, of course. King even found his books removed from a book seller’s website over the Kirk comment.
“We thought so much more of you @StephenKing,” Belfast Books said on X, adding “and even though this may harm us financially we’re removing all your books from our website.”
“Absolute abhorrent and ill-informed comment in the first instance that an inchoate apology doesn’t begin to cover. Go further,” they said.
King’s films have been slipping for quite some time, though.
For instance, the slow opening for The Long Walk is dismal compared to the debut of It in 2017, which earned $123 million in its opening weekend.
This week’s lemon is the third disappointing box office for a King-based film this year. In February, The Monkey only pulled in $14 million, while The Life of Chuck was even worse with only $224,000 during its June opening, ScreenRant reported.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: Facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston, or at X/Twitter @WTHuston
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