F. Gary Gray Replaces Darabont on Law Abiding Citizen

After director Frank Darabont (”The Mist”) suddenly realized that his new movie with Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx, the crime thriller “Law Abiding Citizen”, was not, in fact, based on a short story by Stephen King as he had been told by producers, he immediately panicked and jumped ship, leaving the spot open for “A Man Apart” director F. Gary Gray. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the reason Darabont abandoned “Citizen” faster than Paris Hilton dropping to her knees at the promise of a photoshoot, but for the purposes of this post, let’s just go with it.

THR has your “Citizen” news:

Darabont recently fell off the film, setting off a scurrying among agents and directors to sign on to “Citizen,” which will star Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler and is a priority for startup shingle the Film Department. John Singleton was interested, but Gray landed the gig.

Darabont co-wrote the script, but creative differences with producers led to a parting of the ways.

“Citizen” centers on a man who is enraged by a plea bargain to set his family’s killers free and in a fit of vigilante justice pursues the district attorney who made the deal. Butler, Alan Siegel, Lucas Foster and Mark Gill are producing, with Neil Sacker and Robert Katz executive producing.

F. Gary Gray’s previous credits include the aforementioned “A Man Apart” with Vin Diesel, “The Italian Job” with Mark Wahlberg, and most recently, “Get Shorty” sequel “Be Cool”. He’s supposed to do a sequel to “The Italian Job” called “The Brazilian Job” in 2009, because, apparently the mediocre quality of “Italian” demands it.

Below: “Wait a minute… This doesn’t look like a movie based on a Stephen King short story! Cut!”