Darabont Not Happy about 'Indy 4'

Writer/director calls it a 'waste of a year'

By: Brad Brevet
Published: Thursday, April 19th 2007 at 12:08 AM

If any of you own the 2-disc special edition of The Green Mile and listened to the exhaustive commentary you know that Frank Darabont comes off as a bit of a sweetheart. Honestly, that commentary almost made me sick with how nice the guy seemed. This of course is not a bad thing, but with a three hour movie and so much lovey-dovey attitude it got a bit annoying.

So, with that in mind, I start reading an interview with Darabont now that he has wrapped filming on The Mist and the conversation turned to Indiana Jones 4 of which Darabont spent a year writing the script and director Steven Spielberg was all for it. Unfortunately for Frank, George Lucas pulled the plug on his script and passed. Describing the situation to MTV/VH1 Darabont said, "I spent a year of very determined effort on something I was very excited about, working very closely with Steven Spielberg and coming up with a result that I and he felt was terrific. He wanted to direct it as his next movie, and then suddenly the whole thing goes down in flames because George Lucas doesn't like the script."

He obviously sounds a little bitter at that point, but when asked if he actually spoke with Lucas he said, "Yes! I told him he was crazy. I said, 'You have a fantastic script. I think you're insane, George.' You can say things like that to George, and he doesn't even blink. He's one of the most stubborn men I know."

Darabont refers to the project as "a tremendous disappointment and a waste of a year," and says he would love to put his script out there for everyone to read, but it isn't his property and he says, "At this point, I don't give much of a damn what George thinks, but I wouldn't want to harm my friendship with Steven."

David Koepp wrote the script that ended up getting the green light and the current cast includes Harrison Ford (obviously), Cate Blanchett, Ray Winstone and Shia LaBeouf and is expected to be released in 2008 with production set to begin this June.

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