NEWS

Darabont start on The Mist next week

Posted: September 24, 2004, 13:50
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Frank Darabont still plan to do The Mist. He'll start work on The Mist script "next week," but wasn't sure when it would get made.

Frank Darabont confirmed to SCI FI Wire that he plans to write and direct a film version of Stephen King's horror tale The Mist, which appeared as a short novel in King's Skeleton Crew collection. Darabont previously scored successes with The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, both of which were based on King stories. "I love the fact that The Mist is a pressure cooker that's character-driven and that's a down-and-dirty monster movie," Darabont said in an interview while promoting the upcoming 10th anniversary special-edition DVD of The Shawshank Redemption. "I just love it."

Darabont added, "It's that wonderful Steve King taste in the mouth. I'm excited about getting back to my horror roots. I'm also excited about getting in there and shooting something down-and-dirty. I envision the monster barely glimpsed, just like in the story. These are things that you don't quite ever fully see. So I'm going to take a cue from everybody's godfather, Mr. Spielberg, and show the shark as little as possible," he added, referring to Steven Spielberg's Jaws.

The writer/director added that he'll start work on the Mist script "next week," but wasn't sure when it would get made, as he's already attached to direct a Fahrenheit 451 remake and may also take on Mine, a thriller to be based on a Robert McCammon novel in which both the hero and the villain are female. "That one may go first," Darabont said. "It's all in the hands of the film gods."

Thanks to Bev Vincent.