Oscar-nominated director (and The Walking Dead lawsuit victor) Frank Darabont was recently coaxed out of retirement for season five of Stranger Things; he helmed volume one’s “The Turnbow Trap” and will have another entry, “Shock Jock,” in volume two. But Darabont’s biggest Hollywood imprint comes with his Stephen King adaptations; before Mike Flanagan hit the scene, Darabont was probably King’s most prominent cinematic collaborator, with The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist.
But there was one project the two talked about working on together that never materialized—at least, not Darabont’s version of it: The Dark Tower. (Flanagan has that on his to-do-someday list now, and it’s best if we all collectively forget the version that hit theaters in 2017 starring Matthew McConaughey and Idris Elba.)
In an interview with IndieWire focused around his Stranger Things episodes—it turns out he and his wife were already “obsessed fans” long before the Duffer Brothers and Netflix came calling—Darabont talked about his near miss with The Dark Tower.
“I actually turned Steve down,” Darabont recalled. “He called me once, and it’s not the only time he ever called me, but he called me once and asked me if I was interested in taking on The Dark Tower. I was very flattered and very honored that he asked me. But man, so much of that story is so internalized. It’s so in the heads of the characters, and it’s this massive, endless story as well. I thought, oh my god, this could be the next 10 years of my life and miss the mark, because it is a diabolically difficult thing to adapt. And at that point, I was just exhausted anyway.”
The choice was clear, even if he hated to make it, Darabont added. “And I said, ‘Steve, I love you… Thank you for asking, but I gotta not do this.’ I would have frozen in place if I had. He was very, very kind about that and then moved on with it.”
But The Dark Tower stayed on the director’s mind. “A couple of years later, when we were having a conversation, I said, ‘So wait, what’s going on with The Dark Tower? I don’t know, I might reconsider that.’ He said, “Oh, no, it’s with somebody else by now.’”
Darabont understood, of course, and he has nothing but praise for King, whom he calls “one of the world’s greatest people.” The Dark Tower might not have come together, but “I really owe him so much. You can imagine, my whole directing career, I owe to Steve King.”
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