A new report suggests that Frank Darabont is set to helm episodes of Stranger Things, returning to the director’s chair for the first time since The Walking Dead.
We haven’t heard much from Frank Darabont in the last decade. Darabont directed IMDb’s number one ranked movie of all time, The Shawshank Redemption, not to mention other admired Stephen King adaptations, The Green Mile and The Mist. He’s also the guy who got the TV show The Walking Dead up and running to the point that it became a worldwide phenomenon.
Darabont left The Walking Dead after a couple of seasons over creative differences, however. He went on to launch another TV show, Mob City, which would only run for six episodes, and hasn’t directed a feature film since 2007’s The Mist. While he’s done some scripting work in the years since, it’s been a decade and a bit since we saw Darabont direct a project, and that’s something of a shame.
He’s talked a little in the years since about struggling to finance projects: for a long, long time he held the rights to Stephen King novella The Long Walk, and always said he’d get around to it. It emerged last month that an adaptation of that story is finally coming, but Darabont isn’t involved.
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According to industry insider Jeff Sneider, though, Darabont is in talks to direct two episodes of the final season of Stranger Things for Netflix. As something of a Stephen King specialist, it’s easy to see why the show’s producers would want Darabont on board – the series has always worn its Stephen King influences proudly on its sleeve. Securing the services of Darabont would certainly embellish the show’s long-standing appreciation for the horror author and his works.
For Darabont, meanwhile, perhaps a return to the director’s chair might mean a long overdue comeback is on the cards? He’s been out of the limelight for far too long, and this writer surely isn’t alone in appreciating how creatively uncompromising Darabont could be: his exit from The Walking Dead marked the beginning of a change which pre-empted the show’s eventual slide into obscurity. And then there’s his ending for 2007’s The Mist – that moment remains as the boldest creative departure we’ve seen from King’s stories across any screen adaptation of the author’s many works.
Whether Stranger Things marks a new stage in Darabont’s directing career or not, at least those episodes will introduce the filmmaker and his work to a wider audience. Let’s hope that Sneider’s report proves to be accurate.
