'Stranger Things' Getting Frank Darabont Out Of Retirement Is Radical, Dudes

By Andrew Sanford | TV | October 1, 2024 |

By Andrew Sanford | TV | October 1, 2024 |

Stranger Things wears its inspirations on its sleeves. The show proudly contains homages, direct references, and recreations of moments from shows or movies that influenced it. It’s one of the more charming aspects of the show! They love the 80s and they want you to know it. They’ve even pushed the references further by enlisting popular actors from the time like Sean Astin and Robert Englund. For their last season, the show has convinced famed director Frank Darabont to leave retirement and make his way to Hawkins.

Darabont has horror bonafides out the wazoo. The director cut his teeth in the industry by writing movies like Nightmare On Elm Street 3 and The Blob remake. He wrote and directed The Mist in 2007, marking his third time adapting a Stephen King story for the screen (though the first two entries aren’t horror movies). That all prepped him for The Walking Dead, which he shepherded onto television, though his time on that show would be short-lived.

Darabont is an immeasurable talent, and he’s bringing those skills to episodes three and five in the last season of Stranger Things. I was a little doubtful when there were first rumors that Darabont would be getting back behind the camera for the hit Netflix show. While it seemed well-matched for him, the idea of him coming out of retirement did not. Darabont sued AMC for their treatment of him on The Walking Dead. Not only can an experience like that put someone off the industry, but he was paid $200 million in a settlement. That’s “leave me alone” money.

However, it didn’t take much to convince him to join the show. Like many people, Darabont is a big fan of Eleven and her friends. “What really dragged me out of retirement was that my wife and I really love this show,” Darabont told The Daily Beast. “Our content now is so filled with horrible people doing horrible things for greedy reasons but Stranger Things has so much heart. That positivity is something I really responded to.” He’s not wrong about the folks of Hawkins! At their core, they’re mostly just good people.

The next question is whether or not this will lead to a return to directing for Darabont. He isn’t sure himself. “Who knows? I haven’t missed the business but I have missed being on set with creative people … It may well be one and done, but we’ve still got time,” he noted. Regardless of whether or not he keeps this up, this was a good get for the folks at Stranger Things.

I genuinely enjoy what The Duffer Brothers and Shawn Levy do on the show. Still, we can expect a different sensibility from Darabont. Look no further than the second season of The Walking Dead to note the impact Darabont has. He was fired halfway through and you can feel the show’s quality change and drop around the same time as well. The focus shifts. Darabont knows what he’s talking about. Darabont knows what he’s doing.