Frank Darabont

 ( 1959 Births ) 

Darabont cast Jon Bernthal, whom he had worked with on The Walking Dead, in the lead role for the series. Other Darabont regulars cast included Jeffrey DeMunn and Alexa Davalos. The series was given a full season order of six episodes in the fall of 2012 and the title of the series was changed to Mob City. The series premiered in December 2013 and was met with mixed to positive reviews. The series was cancelled after one season.

Darabont was a script doctor for the Steven Spielberg films Saving Private Ryan and Minority Report. In 2002, he wrote an early draft of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. While Spielberg reportedly loved it, George Lucas rejected it. He also produced the 2002 film The Salton Sea, starring Val Kilmer and Vincent D'Onofrio.

Over the years Darabont has reunited with his old writing partner Chuck Russell. He did a rewrite for Russell's film Eraser, they attempted to adapt a film of the 1930s pulp character, Doc Savage, and the two wrote an early treatment and were executive producers on the film Collateral.

He has also tried to produce film adaptations of the novels Mine by Robert R. McCammon and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Darabont still hopes to make both films someday.

The same year Shawshank was released, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which Darabont wrote, was also released. The film was met with mixed reviews and Darabont called it the worst experience in his career as a writer as he had considered it the best script he had ever written, but that director Kenneth Branagh ruined it "every step of the way". He went on to say that "you can't really judge the script based on what you saw on the screen. It got rephrased and messed with every inch of the way." Guillermo del Toro has shown interest in adapting Darabont's draft of the Frankenstein script when he gets around to filming his own version of the story, calling the draft a "near perfect" adaptation of the original book.

In 2004, he was hired by Tom Cruise to write , but the script was later rewritten by J. J. Abrams, who directed the film. The same year, Darabont wrote the introduction for the Hellboy novel, Hellboy: Odder Jobs by Christopher Golden.

In 2005, Cemetery Dance Publications published Darabont's novella Walpuski's Typewriter in a limited edition. The story, originally written in his early twenties, first appeared in Jessie Horsting's magazine Midnight Graffiti.

In 2007, Darabont directed an episode of The Shield titled "Chasing Ghosts". He also directed and executive produced the pilot episode of Raines, starring Jeff Goldblum.

Darabont appeared in "First Class Jerk", the October 26, 2008, episode of Entourage in which he propositions Vincent Chase to star in a TV show he is executive producing. He appeared in a September 12, 2009, episode where he is now the director of the film about Enzo Ferrari, who Vince is portraying.

According to the Battlestar Galactica: The Official Companion series by Titan Books, Darabont—a huge fan of the re-imagined series—was slated to direct "Islanded in a Stream of Stars", the penultimate episode of the show's final season. Due to scheduling conflicts, he was unable to take the job, which fell to series star (and previous helmer) Edward James Olmos.

Darabont was slated to direct the 2009 film Law Abiding Citizen, but left production due to creative differences with the producers.

At the 2012 Austin Film Festival, Darabont was awarded the Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking Award for his contribution to cinema.

In 2013, he lent his voice to a lengthier version of the World War Z audio book. In November of the same year Bob Weinstein revealed that he and Darabont were developing a ten part television series based on Darabont's 2007 film The Mist.

Darabont was hired to rewrite the script for the 2014 Godzilla reboot. Darabont stated that he would like to bring the monster back to his origins as a "terrifying force of nature." The director of the film Gareth Edwards stated in an interview that Darabont wrote the most moving scene of the film and that particular scene helped convince cast members Bryan Cranston and Juliette Binoche to sign onto the film.

In June 2014, it was reported that Darabont was on the shortlist to direct , a sequel to the fantasy film Snow White and the Huntsman. A month later it was confirmed that Darabont would direct the film, but it would not be a sequel, but a prequel focusing on Chris Hemsworth's character Eric, the Huntsman. However, Darabont left the project in January 2015, citing creative differences as the cause.

Darabont revealed in a 2021 interview with Mick Garris that he had recently written a script for a film centred around the American Civil War, based on an unproduced screenplay by filmmaker Stanley Kubrick and historian Shelby Foote that Ridley Scott was attached to produce. Darabont considers the script to be the best thing he has ever written and was dismayed when the film was unable to find financing.

In 2024, it was announced that Darabont was sent to direct the third and fifth episodes of the fifth and final season of the popular Netflix series Stranger Things, marking his comeback as a director since Mob City.

Uncredited writing works

Technical credits

Cameo appearance

Cameos

• Lilja, Hans-Åke. Interview Lilja's Library – The World of Stephen King, February 6, 2007