King's THE MIST Finally Going Ahead

[AndyDursin]

Finally!

This project has been in development for way, way too long, but it definitely sounds like it's good to go now.

I hope Darabont returns to form and brings some edge with him to this movie. I loved SHAWSHANK to no end but GREEN MILE was just too soft for me.

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Someone's Mist Opportunity
October 19, 2006

Dimension Films have snapped up the rights to the Stephen King novella “The Mist” and have tapped Frank Darabont (“The Green Mile”) to transform it into a feature.

According to Variety, Darabont - who also directed the film version of King adaptation “The Shawshank Redemption” – will direct from his own script.

King entrusted the rights to him several years ago, when Darabont had a first-look deal at Paramount. Darabont is in the final stages of reclaiming rights to his script.

"It's a project Stephen King and I have been talking about doing for almost 20 years now," Darabont said. "In fact, it almost was my first directing project many years ago, but I went classy and did "The Shawshank Redemption" instead. It's time to get down and dirty and make a nasty little character-driven gut-punch horror movie."

Dimension co-chairman Bob Weinstein and production president Richard Saperstein have set a spring production start for the film, which Darabont will produce with Castle Rock's Martin Shafer and Liz Glotzer. The latter steered "Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile."

Published in 1985 as part of King's short story collection "Skeleton Crew," "The Mist" takes place in a small town where a thick mist engulfs the area, killing those caught in its darkness. Terrified survivors seek refuge in a supermarket, while a swarm of murderous critters tries to get in.

Weinstein cited that dual fright dynamic as his prime attraction to the project.

"I'm a fan of films like 'Saw,' 'Wolf Creek' and 'Hostel,' but when I started Dimension, Stephen King and his ability to create real character-based thrills in 'Misery,' 'Carrie' and 'The Shining' was an inspiration for the kind of films I wanted to make," Weinstein said. "This is a great opportunity to get one of those classic properties and to work with Frank, who handles Stephen's work so well."

Thomas Jane is in talks to star.

http://www.moviehole.net/news/20061019_ ... unity.html

[Monterey Jack]

This is one of my favorite King novellas, and I hope that Darabont can pull it off for the big screen. I just think, however, that it'll underperform at the box office because idiotic teenagers will think it's a "rip-off" of the Fog remake. Still, Darabont's King flicks have been formidable thus far (and I absolutely love The Green Mile).

[Carlson2005]

Two words: Harvey Scissorhands.

Couldn't happen at a worse studio.

[AndyDursin]

Two words: Harvey Scissorhands.

Couldn't happen at a worse studio.

That IS undoubtedly the bad part.

You can just see them making the movie, and then Harvey & Bob decide it's not gory enough for today's SAW/HOSTEL audience.

One wonders if Darabont won't try and get some control over his movie before they go into production.

[Monterey Jack]

You can just see them making the movie, and then Harvey & Bob decide it's not gory enough for today's SAW/HOSTEL audience.

The novella is pretty damn gory is spots. I just hope that Darabont only gives us glimpses of the monsters, aside from the big horror setpieces (the "tentacles" scene, the attack by the giant spiders), and that he uses practical F/X techniques if possible. I keep wondering what this movie would have been like back in 1985, with John Carpenter and his Thing creative team (Dean Cundey, Rob Bottin, Ennio Morricone) behind the camera.

[AndyDursin]

You can just see them making the movie, and then Harvey & Bob decide it's not gory enough for today's SAW/HOSTEL audience.

The novella is pretty damn gory is spots. I just hope that Darabont only gives us glimpses of the monsters, aside from the big horror setpieces (the "tentacles" scene, the attack by the giant spiders), and that he uses practical F/X techniques if possible. I keep wondering what this movie would have been like back in 1985, with John Carpenter and his Thing creative team (Dean Cundey, Rob Bottin, Ennio Morricone) behind the camera.

Yeah and the problem is whether or not Dimension leaves him alone. Given their historical track record, Darabont will complete his movie and leave something to the imagination, then Harvey & Bob will demand re-shoots and up the gore and FX quotient to satisfy "the marketplace." Darabont won't do press, the movie will be cut to 90 minutes, and one day we'll get a "Director's Cut" that will be better than what gets released.

Sadly, you can just see it happening all too easily...

[Carlson2005]

Or, as was reputed to have happened with Below, they'll give the director final cut and then dump the picture when he doesn't go along with Harvey's editing 'suggestions' to prove that the director was wrong all along. After all, this is the label that still routinely cuts 20 minutes out of all their Asian films.

[AndyDursin]

Or, as was reputed to have happened with Below, they'll give the director final cut and then dump the picture when he doesn't go along with Harvey's editing 'suggestions' to prove that the director was wrong all along. After all, this is the label that still routinely cuts 20 minutes out of all their Asian films.

Exactly. BELOW is one of the few that stands out from all of Dimension's genre films, and was dumped like too many of their better films.

[Monterey Jack]

Oh my God, I can't believe Darabont got away with that ending...

One of the best horror films in recent memory.

[AndyDursin]

Oh my God, I can't believe Darabont got away with that ending...

Too bad that he did. I hated it -- turned the whole movie into a pointless, narcissistic, depressing waste of my money. I see some people arguing it "fit" King's original story, but I'd disagree with that, so I'm scratching my head as to what Darabont was thinking.

Otherwise, I liked parts of it, but it felt overlong and the Marcia Gay Harden role was so pedestrian and one-dimensional. "Oh she's a religious nut!" -- we got the idea in about 10 seconds and had it rammed down our throats for the entire movie. Heavy-handed...ummm, yeah.

Had the film ended differently I probably would've been OK with even that, but the conclusion was easily, unquestionably one of the least satisfying endings in the history of cinema. It's like Darabont raised his middle finger at everyone. I could go on about it for hours too but in the interests of not spoiling it I won't.

I hope there's an alternate version on the DVD with a different ending, maybe one that actually concludes on a more satisfying note, even if it's an ambiguous one like the original story. Basically ANYTHING would've been preferable to that. It didn't fit the characters, the story...felt cheap and "ironic" like a bad TWILIGHT ZONE episode, but something tells me he's going to regret pulling that kind of stunt on the audience. Word of mouth is going to kill this film.

The greatest irony in all this is that Dimension -- known for screwing with their movies and re-editing them -- cuts the shreds out of films and re-shoots them for their entire existence, and HERE they let this ending stand? What a joke! This one was crying for a re-shoot, or some judicious editing (I would've finished it like the story and just cut the last few minutes away).

[Monterey Jack]

I LOVED the ending (or rather, I hated it for being so effective). King's novella basically had the "seed" of Darabont's new ending in one sentence, and King has gone on record as wishing he had written it. As for mainstream audiences hating it...good. Audiences hated the ending of Carpenter's The Thing, too.

[AndyDursin]

I LOVED the ending (or rather, I hated it for being so effective). King's novella basically had the "seed" of Darabont's new ending in one sentence, and King has gone on record as wishing he had written it. As for mainstream audiences hating it...good. Audiences hated the ending of Carpenter's The Thing, too.

I don't buy it. The ending had an ambiguity that was ideal and worked far more satisfactorily for me than this one. I'm to the point now where if King's got a check in the back pocket he'll say anything positive.

Looks like there will be a big divide on this ending, obviously, between people who think "Darabont had the balls to go for a non-conventional anti-Hollywood ending" and others who think it was a massive, inexplicable dramatic misstep that ruined the preceding 120 minutes of celluloid.

I don't see the relationship between this ending and the conclusion of Carpenter's THE THING either. That ending was ambiguous, possibly pessimistic and fit the story. Russell and his buddy might've been screwed but the drama reached a satisfying end point. Did audiences really "hate" it? They may not have loved it but it wasn't the reason the film flopped. I thought the consensus was that audiences just avoided that movie because it had a lousy, horrible ad campaign and was a hard-core R-rated horror movie that got buried during the feel-good summer of E.T.

This ending, by comparison, is perhaps the most downbeat ending to any film I've ever seen. Hey I think it would've been better if Linda Blair's head was ripped off by Max von Sydow at the end of THE EXORCIST -- why didn't Friedkin or Blatty think of it?

Darabont should've quit while he was ahead. If Wednesday's box-office is any indication this one might be headed straight for flop status, especially after poisonous word of mouth starts flowing. And I'll be thrilled if it does, it's been a while since I've wanted my money back to that degree.

[Monterey Jack]

Different strokes, Andy. I hatehatehate "horror" movies that go out of their way to concoct a happy ending (like Cruise's son surviving in War Of The Worlds...in a word, bullcr@p). Yeah, The Mist's ending is staggeringly despairing and cruel...and that's cool in my book. I'm sick to death of "ironic", wink-at-the-camera horror pictures, which can be fun (Slither, Planet Terror), but are rarely scary. The Mist actually made me feel haunted for hours afterwards, and in a time where most horror movies can be forgotten a few days later (the Saw/Hostel torture porn garbage), this has to be commended. Darabont wanted to hurt people with this ending, and I think he succeeds swimmingly. If the movie ended like the novella, no one would have liked it either ("An Alfred Hitchcock ending" King wrote in the story), so it was either this or everyone getting rescued. I'll take what we got.

[AndyDursin]

Yeah, The Mist's ending is staggeringly despairing and cruel...and that's cool in my book.

I didn't want to see a nice, tidy "happy" ending either. But this ending goes beyond the realm of being a "downer" -- it's downright hateful. Despair and cruelty aren't forms of entertainment for me at least.

It's also not the film's only problem either. The Marcia Gay Harden character was easily one of the most heavy-handed stereotypes I've seen in any movie in years on top of it. The characters, in general, seemed more like "types" than believable, three-dimensional people as well.

[Monterey Jack]

I didn't want to see a nice, tidy "happy" ending either. But this ending goes beyond the realm of being a "downer" -- it's downright hateful. Despair and cruelty aren't forms of entertainment for me at least.

Didn't you give positive reviews to Blow Out and A Simple Plan? Those movies have conclusions that make the ending of The Mist seem downright cuddly.