Stephen King has seen much of his work adapted for film and televison, quite often with painfully bad result.
Now the man that has like more success with Mr. King’s material is coming back for a third go around.
Frank Darabont will be directing the big screen version of The Mist. Frank previously directed The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. The Mist was originally published in the anthology The Skeleton Crew.
In a statement to Ain’t It Cool, Frank gave a few reasons why he wanted to tackle The Mist, a film that is a departure from his past work.
“.. I grew up loving movies that sought to scare the crap out of me, starting with the classic Universal monsters. Well, of course, that love of the genre is what led me to Stephen King’s works in the first place, isn’t it? So it’s time to repay that debt and try to scare the crap out of an audience myself. With Steve’s great story, and a little luck, I’m hoping to do just that.”
“Another reason is, it’s a project Stephen King and I have been talking about doing for almost twenty years now, since I first got to know and become friends with the man. In fact, it almost was my first directing project many years ago, but I went classy and did THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION instead. But THE MIST never went away; it’s been lurking out there calling my name for a long, long time…and it’s time to answer the call; it’s time to get down and dirty and make a nasty little character-driven gut-punch horror movie.”
“In a sense, doing a film like THE MIST is like putting myself into film school and learning a whole new approach to what I do.I had a foretaste of that earlier this year when I had the privilege of directing an episode of THE SHIELD for my friend Shawn Ryan. It was a seven-day shoot, fast-fast-fast, and I have to say there was something wildly liberating about shooting that way…I’d say that if directing something like THE GREEN MILE is the equivalent of conducting a huge symphony orchestra playing Beethoven’s Ninth in perfect tune, then directing something like THE SHIELD is the equivalent of jumping up on a small stage and playing with a small jazz combo and not caring if you miss a few notes — in fact, missing some notes is kind of the point, isn’t it? I want to take what I learned doing THE SHIELD and apply it to a feature film, and THE MIST is the perfect venue for that kind of in-your-face, in-the-moment energy. So one might say that if I’ve been going to film school this year, and if THE SHIELD was my mid-term, then THE MIST will be my class thesis. I can always go back to being the elegant guy later.”
A small Maine town becomes isolated by a thick mist which also contains various gooey creatures that are out to eat the populace. Most of the story concentrates on a small band of folks who hole up in a grocery storeand their struggle to fight off those critters that are interested in making them lunch.
So far cast includes Academy Award-winner Marica Gay Harden (Pollock, Mystic River), Thomas Jane (The Punisher, the forthcoming Killshot), William Sadler (The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption) and Emmy-winner Andre Braugher (Homicide: Life on the Streets).
At this point, the plan is for it to be released in November of this year.
