The Shawshank Redemption has often been considered to be one of the greatest films ever made. The film was based on a novel by Stephen King and starred Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins in the lead roles. While the film has been a cult classic since its release, its director Frank Darabont has reportedly been blacklisted by the TV and film industries.
Darabont was reportedly instrumental in the success of the AMC series The Walking Dead, for which he was a director, executive producer, and developer. However, the filmmaker was reportedly fired before the production of season two, leading him to sue AMC. Now, Darabont is all set to make a comeback with Netflix’s Stranger Things.
The Shawshank Redemption’s Frank Darabont Makes A Comeback With Stranger Things
Frank Darabont is reportedly finally coming back to the director’s chair. While the filmmaker has been missing since his public feud with AMC after they parted ways from The Walking Dead, he will reportedly be helming two episodes in the fifth and final season of Netflix’s Stranger Things.
According to industry insider Jeff Sneider, The Shawshank Redemption director was tapped to direct the episodes along with Shawn Levy and the show’s creators, The Duffer Brothers. The show seems to be right up the alley of Darabont as his filmography consists of multiple Stephen King adaptations, a known influence on the Netflix series.
Frank Darabont is known for helming films such as The Shawshank Redemption, The Mist, The Green Mile, and The Woman in the Room. The filmmaker had reportedly been an unofficial script doctor for films such as Saving Private Ryan and had also written the script for Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla.
Darabont was also reportedly instrumental in developing the first season of AMC’s The Walking Dead. The filmmaker directed and wrote the pilot episode of the show, ‘Days Gone Bye’, which received multiple accolades and even fetched Frank Darabont a nomination for the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Drama Series.
Why Did Frank Darabont Have a Fallout With AMC?
Despite Frank Darabont’s involvement in the development of AMC’s The Walking Dead, the filmmaker announced that he was leaving the series ahead of the second season’s production. The director mentioned that he split with the team due to creative differences, which was allegedly related to AMC cutting down the budget for the second season.
Frank Darabont mentioned in an interview with IGN that he did not understand how a successful show would get its budget cut. He said,
“I don’t understand the thinking behind, ‘Oh, this is the most successful show in the history of basic cable. Let’s gut the budgets now.’ I never did understand that and I think they got tired of hearing me complain about it. It’s a little more complicated than that, but that’s as far as I want to go with it because otherwise it’s just provoking more controversy and that’s not really of interest to me.”
After he was fired from the series, Frank Darabont reportedly filed a lawsuit against AMC, seeking profits from the series and its spinoffs. The lawsuit reportedly resulted in a kind of blacklist for Darabont as he was not able to get any of his projects funded. The lawsuit was reportedly settled in 2021 with AMC paying him and CAA $200 million (via Deadline).
Darabont expressed on multiple occasions that he was not able to get projects off the ground and that he had sort of retired. However, his return to the director’s chair with Stranger Things is being considered as a comeback for The Shawshank Redemption filmmaker. Jeff Sneider mentioned that the filmmaker was given a lifeline by the Duffer Brothers.
