Frank Darabont Changed the Ending of King’s The Mist

Stephen King fans will probably hate the news that Frank Darabont has changed the ending of Stephen King’s short novella “The Mist” for the movie version. According to Darabont himself, his ending will be “definitive”, while King’s was open-ended and left to interpretation. Now as I was saying, many King fans will be a little peeved that Darabont dared to change the master’s ending, but as for me, I’m kind of glad he did. Not that I’ve read the novella, mind you, but because every Stephen King horror movie I have seen has always ended, well, stupid. Remember the giant spider in “It”? The alien bugs in “Dreamcatcher”? The point is, the ending to Stephen King horror stories (and I’m just talking about the horror ones here) have never ended with any satisfaction for me. Now that Darabont has admitted that he changed King’s ending — yeah, I want to see “The Mist” now. I’m that easy.

Here’s what Darabont said:

Darabont (The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption), added that the film’s final moments came to him more than a decade ago. “It’s the one ending that’s always made sense to me,” he said. “When I say ‘wimp out,’ I don’t necessarily mean in literature, but in a movie. I was always one of those people who hated The Birds, even when I was a kid, because there was no ending to the movie. I didn’t much care for that. It’s not a judgment on Steve’s story as much as … I just don’t think it would work in a film.”

And King agreed! So there you go, King fans. If your own master agreed, what’s your gripe?