Screenwriter and director Frank Darabont has made three feature-length Stephen King adaptations to date: The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and the 2007 film The Mist. He started his career as a screenwriter, largely working on horror films.
Fast Facts:
- Born in a refugee camp in Montbeliard, France
- Parents fled Hungary after the 1956 Revolution
- Three-time Oscar nominee
- Published novella "Walpuski's Typewriter" in 2006
Screenwriting
Darabont made some short films at the start of his career, and then moved into screenwriting. He worked on the scripts for The Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, The Blob and The Fly 2, and was a staff writer on the short-lived TV series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.
Since becoming a director, Darabont has still touched up a few scripts, including the Steven Spielberg films Minority Report and Saving Private Ryan. He wrote an early draft for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but it was rejected by producer George Lucas.
Association with King
Author Stephen King likes to encourage young filmmakers through his Dollar Baby program, under which he'll sell the rights to a story to a young filmmaker for $1. Darabont's first short film as a writer-director was an adaptation of the King short story The Woman in the Room in 1983, and the film led to a close relationship between the author and the filmmaker. King agreed early on to allow Darabont to adapt another one of his stories, called Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, which he turned into the film The Shawshank Redemption in 1994.
Frank Darabont Timeline
Note: The majority of the links in this timeline are to IMDb, which has pop-ups.
January 28, 1959: Born
2008 Foreign Babes in Beijing: IMDb (pre-production)
2005 Walpuski's Typewriter: Official Publisher's Site (book)
2004 Collateral: IMDb
1994 Frankenstein: IMDb
1989 The Fly II: IMDb
1988 The Blob: IMDb
1987 A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors: IMDb
1983 The Woman in the Room: IMDb
