Legendary director Frank Darabont comes out of retirement for Stranger Things 5

Thanks to projects like The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, director Frank Darabont has proven himself to be one of the finest directors of all time. The Shawshank Redemption won the Academy Award for Best Picture and is widely regarded as one of the greatest movies ever. Despite entering retirement over a decade ago, Darabont has decided to return to helm one more project: Stranger Things 5.

Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer have entrusted Darabont with directing two episodes of the upcoming final season. Darabont has been out of the business for a while now. His last directorial work came in the form of Mob City in 2013, which was prematurely axed. He was the showrunner for the first two seasons of AMC's The Walking Dead before stepping down, supposedly due to budgeting disagreements with the network.

So what about Stranger Things excited him enough to come out of an 11-year retirement? Well, it seems the main reason is his passion for the show. “What really dragged me out of retirement was that my wife and I really love this show,” Darabont said, per Variety. “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.”

The Mist (2007) was Darabont's last film credit. While Stranger Things is a TV show, he'll no doubt be helming feature-length episodes. The final season is set to continue the show's trend of having stupidly long episodes; two episodes in season 4 exceeded 90 minutes.

As for whether Stranger Things will act as the catalyst for him to return behind the cameras on a more regular basis, Darabont doesn't rule anything out. “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."

Stranger Things 5 started filming in January and it's poised to wrap in the New Year. We don't have a release window yet, but star Gaten Matarazzo thinks 2025 is a good estimate.

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