Frank Darabont directs The Shield, likely still hates George Lucas.
By Burbanked on May 14, 2007 in Movies, TV, The Shield | 1,763 views |
About a week ago, the Starpulse News Blog ran an interview with writer/director Frank Darabont about his one-episode stint directing the intense and pivotal “Chasing Ghosts” episode of the always-spectacular FX show The Shield.
Pieces like these tend to be de rigueur whenever a film director is found “slumming” on the set of a TV show, as if today’s television production should for some reason still be considered the backwaters of cinematic creativity and excellence, but that’s not really what I found interesting here. And I’m not even going to comment on how great an episode this was – even though it really kicked all kinds of tail.
No, what I found compelling was Darabont’s comments about his career and working in TV:
”Truth is, it’s getting harder and harder in my line to get movies made. The studios are getting so…’blockbusterish’…Do I want to spend two years of my life making something I wouldn’t want to spend two hours of my life watching? The answer is no. …I just ran out of gas wanting to ever type ‘Fade in’ for somebody else again. I decided to write for me.”
Now I’m no Sigmund Freud, but I think we can probably guess that Darabont is still stinging from having his draft of Indiana Jones IV tossed into the crapper by George Lucas. Time will tell whether Lucas made the right decision or not, but I’m thinking that someday when Darabont gets too old and curmudgeonly to care anymore that he’ll probably crank out a rather vitriolic tell-all about the entire stupid mess – unless his non-disclosure agreement with Lucas extends into the great beyond or something.
But man! Wouldn’t you just love to read that draft?
© Copyright
Ray | May 14, 2007 | Reply
Man, he’s getting to be a crabby old man.
Frankly, from what I understand of Darabont’s script, the idea was DUMB. I for one am glad Lucas stopped it.
Burbanked | May 14, 2007 | Reply
Perhaps he’s channeling his inner William Goldman.
It may indeed be dumb – but Spielberg wanted to do it apparently, so it sounds like it’d be a fun read, just to wonder what might have been.
MC | May 15, 2007 | Reply
But the counterargument is that Lucas hasn’t really had his fingers on the pulse of what is GOOD for a long time.
Burbanked | May 15, 2007 | Reply
To me it’s a bit scary that Lucas quite simply has no one within his inner circle who is willing to tell him that something’s a bad idea – not even Spielberg.
MC | May 15, 2007 | Reply
Well, the truth is never a good thing in Hollywood.