Frank Darabont

Birthday: 28 January 1959, Montbéliard, Doubs, France

Birth Name: Frank Arpad Darabont

Height: 183 cm

Three-time Oscar nominee Frank Darabont was born in a refugee camp in 1959 in Montbeliard, France, the son of Hungarian parents who had fled Budapest during the failed 1956 Hungarian revolution. Brought to America as an infant, he settled with his family in Los Angeles and attended Hollywood High School. His first job in movies was as a production assistant on the 1981 low-budget film, Hell Night (1981), starring Linda Blair. He spent the next six years working in the art department as a set dresser and in set construction while struggling to establish himself as a writer. His first produced writing credit (shared) was on the 1987 film, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), directed by Chuck Russell. Darabont is one of only six filmmakers in history with the unique distinction of having his first two feature films receive nominations for the Best Picture Academy Award: 1994's The Shawshank Redemption (1994) (with a total of seven nominations) and 1999's The Green Mile (1999) (four nominations). Darabont himself collected Oscar nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay for each film (both based on works by Stephen King), as well as nominations for both films from the Director's Guild of America, and a nomination from the Writers Guild of America for The Shawshank Redemption (1994). He won the Humanitas Prize, the PEN Center USA West Award, and the Scriptor Award for his screenplay of "The Shawshank Redemption". For "The Green Mile", he won the Broadcast Film Critics prize for his screenplay adaptation, and two People's Choice Awards in the Best Dramatic Film and Best Picture categories. The Majestic (2001), starring Jim Carrey, was released in December 2001. He executive-produced the thriller, Collateral (2004), for DreamWorks, with Michael Mann directing and Tom Cruise starring. Future produced-by projects include "Way of the Rat" at DreamWorks with Chuck Russell adapting and directing the CrossGen comic book series and "Back Roads", a Tawni O'Dell novel, also at DreamWorks, with Todd Field attached to direct. Darabont and his production company, "Darkwoods Productions", have an overall deal with Paramount Pictures. Show less «

Stanley Kubrick was a big inspiration. People accuse me of never using my own material. But when did...Show more »

Stanley Kubrick was a big inspiration. People accuse me of never using my own material. But when did Kubrick? You look at his films and they are completely unique . . . completely separate entities. Sometimes an artist rises above his source material. I'd like to think that my films are personal enough to exist without hearkening back to their respective novels. Show less «

[on his rejected script for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) (aka Indiana J...Show more »

[on his rejected script for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) (aka Indiana Jones 4)] Steven [Steven Spielberg] was very, very happy with the script and said it was the best draft of anything since Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). That's really high praise and gave me a real sense of accomplishment, especially when you love the material you're working on as much as I love the "Indiana Jones" films. And then you have George Lucas read it and say, "Yeah, I don't think so, I don't like it". And then he resets it to zero when Spielberg is ready to shoot it that coming year, [which] is a real kick to the nuts. You can only waste so much time and so many years of your life on experiences like that, you can only get so emotionally invested and have the rug pulled out from under you before you say, "Enough of that". Show less «

[on Stephen King from an interview in Creative Screenwriting] We have a joke now - because the first...Show more »

[on Stephen King from an interview in Creative Screenwriting] We have a joke now - because the first two films I directed were period prison movies - that my directing career will stall unless he writes another period prison story. Show less «

If you look at a classic horror movie like The Exorcist (1973), part of what makes it so scary is th...Show more »

If you look at a classic horror movie like The Exorcist (1973), part of what makes it so scary is that it feels so damn real. If you add a layer of too much hysterical, theatrical reality, then audiences take it less seriously. But if you play it for absolute reality, then the dread and the horror - which is why we go to horror movies in the first place - is reinforced. Show less «

[on the ending of The Mist (2007)] That's one of the reasons we shot it so quickly and cheaply, beca...Show more »

[on the ending of The Mist (2007)] That's one of the reasons we shot it so quickly and cheaply, because of that ending. I wound up making it for about half the budget that I had been offered, which came with the caveat that I changed the ending, and I didn't know what another ending would have been, frankly. And I think trying to adjust it would have felt like a total sellout to me. Honestly, it's the ending I had in mind, and whether you love the ending or hate the ending, I stand by it. I think cinema is an art form, it's all expression. I thought, "Okay, let's make it for half that budget and keep that ending, so I can make the movie I set out to make". Otherwise, I'm just a hired monkey. Show less «

[October 1994, in "Premiere" magazine] If you're going to succeed, you've got to be like one of thos...Show more »

[October 1994, in "Premiere" magazine] If you're going to succeed, you've got to be like one of those punch-drunk fighters in the old Warner Bros. boxing pictures: too stupid to fall down, you just keep slugging and stay on your feet. Show less «

[on screenwriting and being a screenwriter] Don't get into this business if it's about trying to mak...Show more »

[on screenwriting and being a screenwriter] Don't get into this business if it's about trying to make a million-dollar sale. We've got plenty of assholes around trying to achieve that goal. There are more dilettantes in the game than real, committed, I'm-gonna-go-down-swinging kinda people. We need more of the latter and less of the former. We need people who care about this as an art form. Movies should count for more than an opening-weekend gross, because whatever had a huge gross this week, will they be talking about it in 50 years? Will it be [a] credit to the art form, the way we talk about Casablanca (1942)? Show less «

[on his struggles getting "Fahrenheit 451" made] Hollywood doesn't trust smart material, if you show...Show more »

[on his struggles getting "Fahrenheit 451" made] Hollywood doesn't trust smart material, if you show them a really smart script. I actually had a studio head read that script and say, "Wow, that's the best and smartest script that I've read since running this studio but I can't possibly greenlight it". I asked why and he says, "How am I going to get 13-year-olds to show up at the theater?" And I said, "Well, let's make a good movie and I bet that will take care of itself". But that argument cut absolutely no ice. The movie was basically too smart for this person, too metaphorical, etc., etc. It's a bit of a battle you've got to fight. When you're faced with it, how do you overcome that prejudice? Show less «

[on The Shawshank Redemption (1994)] I really don't think you can get tired of the kind of loving re...Show more »

[on The Shawshank Redemption (1994)] I really don't think you can get tired of the kind of loving reaction that people have for this movie. It seems to have become its own ambassador to the world. It does mean something to people, and that's so fantastic to me. How many people have even one thing like that in their lives? If [my] obituary is, "Frank 'Shawshank Redemption' Darabont died today at the age of"--hopefully--"110", that would be awesome. Of course, I hope people check out the other films I've made, too, and I hope they enjoy them and I hope I get to make some more that they enjoy. But, hey, if the one thing I'm remembered for is "Shawshank", why on Earth would I complain about that? Few people are remembered for anything. Show less «

I'm Willy Loman wandering around with a briefcase under his arm. Truth is, most people in Hollywood ...Show more »

I'm Willy Loman wandering around with a briefcase under his arm. Truth is, most people in Hollywood are. There's tremendous bureaucracy designed to prevent you realizing your creative vision. They will try to find every reason in the world not to make your movie. It's a very interesting and perverse situation. The only person who can, with impunity, make the movie he wants to make has got to be Steven Spielberg. And I'm sure even he has a bumpy day or two. The rest of us are flailing around trying to find somebody who'll believe in what we believe in. It's tougher than ever, really, because the kinds of movies that I wish to make are not the obvious thing being shoveled out by Hollywood every day. I keep getting sent these scripts, and offers coming through to direct this and direct that. My problem is that I don't want to spend two hours watching them, much less two years making them. Show less «

The human race is fundamentally insane. If you put two of us into a room together we're soon gonna s...Show more »

The human race is fundamentally insane. If you put two of us into a room together we're soon gonna start figuring out good reasons to kill one another. Show less «

[on Quentin Tarantino from an interview in Creative Screenwriting] I find Quentin's work very intere...Show more »

[on Quentin Tarantino from an interview in Creative Screenwriting] I find Quentin's work very interesting, because he does dabble so well in the nihilistic world, but yet, there's a real streak of humanity in his work. It's not about the nihilism, it's about people in a sense operating as honorably as they can in a nihilistic world. Show less «

The Majestic (2001) is a movie I'm very proud of and I really love. It achieved exactly what I set o...Show more »

The Majestic (2001) is a movie I'm very proud of and I really love. It achieved exactly what I set out to make. And I find it very moving. It's a very sweet and quaint movie. That's always a tough sell. Show less «

Frank Darabont

Frank Darabont's FILMOGRAPHY

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