the shawshank redemption was it a true story
Director Frank Darabont first collaborated with author Stephen King in 1983, on the short film adaptation of The Woman in the Room, after buying the rights from King for $1; a Dollar Deal policy King used to help new directors build a resume by adapting his short stories. After receiving his first screenwriting credit in 1987 for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Darabont returned to King with $5,000 to purchase the right to adapt Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, a 96-page short story written by King as part of an attempt to explore new genres. Although King did not understand how the story, largely focused on Red contemplating his fellow prisoner Andy, could make for a feature film, Darabont believed it was ``obvious''. Five years later, Darabont wrote the script over an eight-week period. Darabont expanded on elements of King's story. Brooks, a minor character in the short story who originally dies in a retirement home, became a tragic character who eventually hangs himself. Tommy, who in the story trades his evidence exonerating Andy for transfer to a nicer prison, is instead in the screenplay murdered on the orders of warden Norton, who is himself an amalgamation of several warden characters in King's story. At the time, prison-based films were not considered reliable box-office successes, but Darabont's script was read by then-Castle Rock Entertainment producer Liz Glotzer, whose interest in prison stories and reaction to the script led her to threaten to quit if Castle Rock did not produce The Shawshank Redemption.
The Shawshank Redemption