Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has announced the Blu-ray release of
The Frank Darabont Collection, which features three acclaimed films from the noted director/writer:
The Shawshank Redemption (1994),
The Green Mile (1999) and, making its Blu-ray debut,
The Majestic (2001). The 4-disc set streets on February 24, 2015.
Darabont was born in 1959 in Montbéliard, Doubs, France where his parents had fled to a refugee camp after the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. The family soon moved to Chicago and then Los Angeles, where Darabont grew up. After spending years as a forklift driver and writing for such projects as
The Blob,
The Fly II and
Young Indiana Jones, Darabont caught the eye of Stephen King, and the two became friends. This led to collaborations on Darabont's first two films,
The Shawshank Redemption and
The Green Mile, and later
The Mist.
Both
The Shawshank Redemption and
The Green Mile received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture.
The Shawshank Redemption received a total of seven nominations and
The Green Mile four. Darabont himself collected Oscar nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay for each film as well as nominations from the Director's Guild of America.
The Shawshank Redemption
The Shawshank Redemption is the moving portrayal of a friendship between men under the harshest of circumstances. The film stars Academy Award winning actor Tim Robbins and Academy Award nominee Morgan Freeman. Robbins plays Andy Dufresne, who is serving a life sentence in the Shawshank prison for killing his wife. He meets Red (Freeman) and the two become friends, bond over the years and eventually find peace and solace through acts of common decency.
Special features include:
- Commentary by Writer/Director Frank Darabont
- Hope Springs Eternal: A look Back at The Shawshank Redemption
- Shawshank: The Redeeming Feature
- The Charlie Rose Show Segment Featuring Darabont, Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman
- Comic Spoof The Sharktank Redemption
- Stills and Collectibles Galleries
- Theatrical Trailer
The Green Mile: 15th Anniversary Edition
This new two-disc set include vintage bonus features plus a new high-def documentary feature, Walking the Mile (Extended Version) with Tom Hanks, Darabont, Stephen King and Mr. Jingles the mouse. This exclusive first-person making-of documentary feature was shot on location in Tennessee, North Carolina and Los Angeles.
The film recounts the emotional, uplifting story of Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks), a Southern prison Death Row guard, who develops an unusual and profound relationship with John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan), a massive black man convicted of brutally killing a pair of nine-year-old sisters. Beyond his simple, naive nature and a deathly fear of the dark, Coffey seems to possess a prodigious, supernatural gift, which leads Edgecomb to question whether Coffey was truly guilty of his crime. As the story unfolds, Paul Edgecomb learns that sometimes, miracles happen in the most unexpected places.
Special features include:
- NEW - Walking the Mile (Extended Version): High-def documentary feature starring Tom Hanks, Frank Darabont, Stephen King, and Mr. Jingles, the mouse
- Commentary by Frank Darabont
- The Teaser Trailer: A Case Study
- Walking the Mile: The Making of The Green Mile
- Miracles and Mystery: Creating the Green Mile:
- Stephen King: Storyteller
- The Art of Adaptation
- Acting on the Mile
- Designing the Mile
- The Magic of the Mile
- The Tail of Mr. Jingles
- Deleted Scenes with Optional Commentary by Frank Darabont
- Michael Clarke Duncan's Screen Test
- Tom Hank's Makeup Test
- Teaser
- Trailer
The Majestic
The year is 1951 and ambitious Hollywood screenwriter Peter Appleton (Jim Carrey) is suddenly targeted as a suspected Communist. He loses his job and his girl in quick succession and then in a serious car accident, he's left with amnesia, losing his identity altogether. Stumbling into a charming small California town where he's mistaken for Luke Trimble, one of their many long lost World War II heroes, Peter meets Luke's beautiful girlfriend Adele (Laurie Holden). His "father" Harry (Martin Landau) reintroduces Peter to the life he led before the war, and they work together as father and son to restore and reopen The Majestic, the town's long abandoned movie palace. Though his true memory eventually returns, Peter falls in love with Adele during his sojourn in the town, and he discovers the courage and the conviction he needs to become the hero of his own life.
Special features include:
- Movie Within the Movie: Sand Pirates of the Sierra
- Deleted Scenes
- Trailer