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Frank Darabont, who directed The Shawshank Redemption in 1994, is coming out of retirement to direct several episodes of the fifth and final season of Stranger Things. Created by brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, Stranger Things debuted in 2016 on Netflix, where the final episodes will appear in 2025.
The Shawshank Reddemption, an adaptation of a Stephen King novel, was not a financial success but it’s achieved iconic status as one of the most important American films, garnering seven Oscar nominations.
Darabont created The Walking Dead franchise for AMC, but he had a strained relationship with AMC executives, and he was fired as showrunner in July, 2011 over budgetary disputes. He and the Creative Artists Agency filed a lawsuit seeking $280 million. In 2021, AMC agreed to pay him $200 million plus royalty monies.
So what were his motivations for tackling Stranger Things? Darabont was quoted in a recent interview for The Daily Beast: “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.”
He added that “I haven’t missed the business but I have missed being on set with creative people… It may well be one and done, but we’ve still got time.”
Inspired by 80s pop-culture and elements of Stephen King’s works, Stranger Things is a supernatural thriller TV series set in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana. The plot deals with the search for a young boy who has gone missing, and what happens when his friends encounter a girl with telekinetic powers who may prove to solve the mystery and prevent further mayhem.
In 2021, Darabont revealed that he considered his best work to be his script about the American Civil War based on an unproduced screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Shelby Foote. Ridley Scott was attached to produce it, but funding could not be found.
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