Frank Darabont’s “The Shawshank Redemption” celebrated its 30th anniversary this week, the famed Stephen King adaptation scored critical acclaim but was a theatrical flop – taking in just $16 million at the time. Then the conversation about the film changed – it racked up seven Oscar nominations, had a theatrical re-release multiple times more successful than its original one, and became a massive hit on home video and cable. It’s now considered one of the greatest American films ever made.
Darabont himself meanwhile has essentially retired from filmmaking, having last directed 2007’s “The Mist” he then went on to launch “The Walking Dead” franchise on AMC before a huge legal kerfuffle over that. His last screen work was as a script doctor on 2014’s “Godzilla” and the screenplay for 2016’s “The Huntsman: Winter’s War”. That recently changed though as Matt and Ross Duffer recently lured him out of retirement to helm several episodes of the fifth and final season of “Stranger Things”.
He tells : “What really dragged me out of retirement was that my wife and I really love this show. Our content now is so filled with horrible people doing horrible things for greedy reasons but Stranger Things has so much heart. That positivity is something I really responded to.
” Asked if that means he’ll do more screenwork, he says: “Who knows? I haven’t missed the business but I have missed being on set with creative people...
It may well be one.