I’m not sure what I make of this Hollywood Reporter story, but it seems that Frank Darabont has signed on to write the next installment of Mission: Impossible. Apparently, Tommy Boy must not have been too happy with the work being done by veteran scerenwriter Robert Towne, who not only wrote the first two films, but is also responsible for Cruise films The Firm and Days of Thunder. And of course, I’m not even mentioning his masterpiece, Chinatown or any of the other great work he did in the 70s and 80s.
Although he had been around a while as a writerDarabont was annointed the next great thing after he adapated and directed The Shawshank Redemption redemption 10 years ago, and while his next film The Green Mile was not quite as good and simply a bit too long, he continued to prove himself as a very talented filmmaker. But can he only adapt Stephen King? The Majestic was routinely panned. To be fair, though, he didn’t write that script, and he’s not directing M:I 3. That job has been given to Joe Carnahan who blew away Cruise and his producing partner Paula Wagner with Narc a couple years ago.
Still, I wonder what Darabont will bring to this that Towne wasn’t. I wouldn’t call Towne an action writer per se, and Darabont does have action experience from when he wrote episodes of the old Young Indiana Jones series and made–for–TV movies. Still, his recent work would lead me to believe that he’s more interested in dealing with more emotional and, dare I say, mystical subject matter than a pretty straight-forward action-adventure. On the other hand, the combination of Darabont and the very stylistic Carnahan could definitely give this third installment a much different feel than either of the previous two. I guess we’ll all see in just over a year.
Out of Focus 