News Stranger Things Here’s What Brought Frank Darabont Out of Retirement to Direct Stranger Things Season 5 The Shawshank Redemption director was happily enjoying time away from Hollywood before the Duffer Brothers started calling… By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on December 18, 2025 Courtesy of Netflix Comment 0 Share New Share Courtesy of Netflix Frank Darabont, who directed films like The Shawshank Redemption, The Blob, The Green Mile, and developed AMC’s The Walking Dead, came out of retirement to direct two episodes of Stranger Things 5: “The Turnbow Trap,” which was in the first tranche of the season release, and “Shock Jock,” which will come out on Netflix on Christmas Day. (Easter egg alert: apparently there’s a nod to one of Darabont’s movies in “Shock Jock”; no confirmation as to which one but I’d place money on Nightmare on Elm Street 3 or The Blob.) Darabont and his wife, it turns out, are “obsessed fans” of the series, so when the Duffers asked if he would be interested in directing an episode (which turned into two episodes when Dan Trachtenberg had to drop off due to scheduling), he said yes. “I was so familiar with the show, I watched all four seasons with my wife. I think we’d seen those four seasons about four or five times before this invitation arrived to come direct, because we just loved it so much,” he told IndieWire. Darabont expanded on why Stranger Things appealed to him and his wife so much. “It really does have a moral compass,” he said. “This thing, you have a found family—some actual family—this group of people have been brought together by these circumstances, and they are always trying to do the right thing. There’s tremendous positivity in that group. There’s tremendous loyalty. They will sacrifice for one another. And you don’t see that kind of heart in a lot of our entertainment. There’s a lot of dour… There’s a lot of greed.” Darabont also shared that, years ago, he actually turned down adapting Stephen King’s The Dark Tower (something that Mike Flanagan is currently taking a stab at), and explained why. “I was very flattered and very honored that [Stephen King] asked me,” he told IndieWire. “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 ten 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.” You can see Darabont’s first Stranger Things episode now on Netflix, with the second one dropping on December 25, 2025. [end-mark] The post Here’s What Brought Frank Darabont Out of Retirement to Direct <i>Stranger Things</i> Season 5 appeared first on Reactor.