Frank Darabont Biography

Frank Darabont (born Darabont Ferenc; January 28, 1959) is a Hungarian-American film director, screenwriter, actor and producer who has been nominated for three Academy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. He has directed the films The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist, all based on stories by Stephen King. In 2010 he developed, executive produced, and directed the pilot episode of the AMC's The Walking Dead. As of 2013, he is working on his new television series, Mob City.

Early life

Darabont was born in a refugee camp in 1959 in Montbéliard, Doubs, France. His parents fled Hungary after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. When he was still an infant, his family moved to the United States, settling in Chicago. When Darabont was five the family moved to Los Angeles.

Career

Early films

By the age of 20, Darabont became involved in filmmaking. One of his first films was a short adaptation of Stephen King's The Woman in the Room, which made the semi-finalist list for Academy Award consideration in 1983, and was shown in its entirety in the 1986 syndicated television special, Stephen King's World of Horror. The short, a "Dollar Baby", led to a close association with King, who granted him the "handshake deal" rights to another one of his shorter works, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption from the collection Different Seasons.

Prior to his directing career, Darabont was a successful screenwriter with work on genre films that included: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, The Blob, The Fly II, an early draft of The Rocketeer, and an unproduced sequel to Commando. Darabont made his feature length directorial debut with Buried Alive, a TV movie with a $2,000,000 budget that aired on the USA Network in 1990. Darabont followed with an extended run as writer for George Lucas's television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

Success

Darabont became famous after making good on the deal with Stephen King by writing and directing The Shawshank Redemption, for which he was nominated for a Best Adapted Screenplay at the 1995 Academy Awards. The film was also nominated for six other Academy Awards including Best Picture.

After a five-year hiatus, Darabont returned to the screen with the well-received The Green Mile (starring Tom Hanks), a film he directed, scripted and produced. Like The Shawshank Redemption, this film is based on a Stephen King work. The film was nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture, and Darabont was nominated for his second Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He followed this with The Majestic (starring Jim Carrey, Laurie Holden and Martin Landau) two years later, in 2001, to considerably less fanfare. Following lukewarm reviews from critics, the film failed at the box-office, recouping only half of its $72 million budget internationally.

Darabont is a script doctor for Steven Spielberg films Saving Private Ryan and Minority Report. In 2002, he penned an early draft of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; while Spielberg reportedly loved it, George Lucas rejected it.

In 2004, he was hired by Tom Cruise to write Mission: Impossible III, but the script was later rewritten by J.J. Abrams, who directed the film.

Also in 2004, 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 The Mist, based on a Stephen King novel (starring Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden and Jeffrey DeMunn, among others). A horror film unlike his other King adaptations, the film was a modest box-office success and marked a return to critical acclaim for Darabont.

Darabont also has the rights to two other Stephen King novels, The Long Walk and The Monkey, both of which he says he will make eventually.

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 executive-produced the first season of The Walking Dead, the AMC series based on Robert Kirkman's comic book of the same name, having written and directed the pilot. The series features a number of Darabont regulars, including Jeffrey DeMunn, Laurie Holden and Melissa McBride. In July 2011, Darabont stepped down from his position as showrunner for the series. Initial reports suggested that he was unable to adjust to the schedule of running a television series, however it was later confirmed that he was fired due to the show's reduced budget and his strained relationship with the executives of AMC.

Darabont is acting as executive producer of a new series for TNT, Mob City starring Neal McDonough, Jon Bernthal, Milo Ventimiglia, and Alexa Davalos as female lead. He also directed and wrote the first episode of the series.

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

In 2013, 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."

Recurring collaborators

In addition to collaborating with actors on films and television projects, he has collaborated with writers, producers, composers, and others. These include Mark Isham, Stephen King, Gregory Nicotero, Rohn Schmidt, David Tattersall, and others. Also, Jeffrey DeMunn appeared in The Blob (1988) and Black Cat Run (1998), both of which Darabont wrote, and Alexa Davalos appeared in an episode of Raines that he directed.

The Woman in the Room (1983 film) and Buried Alive (1990) are not listed due to lack of collaborations. (Although Brian Libby appears in both.)

Actor	The Shawshank Redemption (1994)	The Green Mile (1999)	The Majestic (2001)	The Mist (2007)	The Walking Dead (2010)	Mob City (2014)
Jeffrey DeMunn
Brian Libby
William Sadler
Laurie Holden
Jon Bernthal
James Whitmore
Ron Rifkin
Alexa Davalos
Melissa McBride
Samuel Witwer
Juan Gabriel Pareja
Amin Joseph
Andrew Rothenberg

Filmography

Feature films
Year	Film	Other notes
1981	Hell Night	Production assistant
1982	The Seduction	Transportation captain
1983	The Woman in the Room	Short film, director, writer
1984	Crimes of Passion	Set dresser
1985	Trancers	Art department assistant
1987	A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors	Writer only
1988	The Blob	Writer only
1989	The Fly II	Writer only
1994	The Shawshank Redemption	Writer, director Hochi Film Award for Best Foreign Language Film Humanitas Prize for Best Film Kinema Junpo Reader's Choice Award for Best Foreign Language Film USC Scripter Award (shared with Stephen King) Nominated"?Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay Nominated"?Golden Globe for Best Adapted Screenplay Nominated"?Directors Guild of America Best Director Nominated"?Writers Guild of America Best Adapted Screenplay Nominated"?Saturn Award for Best Writing
	Frankenstein	Writer only Nominated"?Saturn Award for Best Writing (shared with Steph Lady)
1998	Saving Private Ryan	Script doctor (uncredited)
1999	The Green Mile	Writer, director, producer Nominated"?Academy Award for Best Picture Nominated"?Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay Nominated"?Saturn Award for Best Director Nominated"?Bram Stoker Award for Best Screenplay Nominated"?Directors Guild of America Award for Best Director Nominated"?OFCS Award for Best Adapted Screenplay Nominated"?Nebula Award for Best Script Nominated"?USC Scripter Award (shared with Stephen King)
2001	The Majestic	Director, producer
2002	The Salton Sea	Producer only
2002	Minority Report	Script doctor (uncredited)
2004	Collateral	Executive producer, uncredited writer
2007	The Mist	Writer, director, producer Saturn Award for Best DVD Special Edition Release 2-Disc Special Edition Nominated"?Saturn Award for Best Director Nominated"?Saturn Award for Best Horror Film Nominated"?Empire Award Best Horror
2014	Godzilla	Writer only

Television
Year	Show	Other notes
1990	Buried Alive	TV movie, director and executive producer
1990"1992	Tales from the Crypt	2 episodes, writer only
1992"1996	The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles	7 episodes, writer only
1998	Black Cat Run	TV movie, writer only
2007	Raines	1 episode, executive producer, director
	The Shield	1 episode, director only
2010"2011	The Walking Dead	Creator, executive producer, writer, director of "Days Gone Bye" American Film Institute Award for TV Programme of the Year Nominated"?Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Series Nominated"?Writers Guild of America Award for New Series
2013	Mob City	Creator, executive producer, writer, director

Actor
Year	Title	Role	Other notes
1997	The Shining	Ghost	Cameo
1998	Vampires	The Man with Buick	Cameo
2005	King Kong	Gunner	Cameo
2008"2009	Entourage	Himself	Episode: "First Class Jerk" "Security Briefs"

Awards and nominations

Frank Darabont has been nominated for 3 Academy Awards and 1 Golden Globe, although he did not win any of these. Over his film career he has won many small awards but has yet to win a major one.

In 1994, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, for The Shawshank Redemption. For that same film he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay " Motion Picture, which he also lost. 5 years later, in 1999, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Film, and also the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, for his film The Green Mile. Both of his nominated films are based on novels by author Stephen King.

Year	Result	Award	Title
1994	Nominated	Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay " Motion Picture	The Shawshank Redemption
1995	Nominated	Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay	The Shawshank Redemption
1999	Nominated	Academy Award for Best Picture	The Green Mile
1999	Nominated	Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay	The Green Mile