MANSFIELD — Rob Reiner loved The Shawshank Redemption.
In fact, the legendary film director loved the script so much that he wanted to make the movie himself when Frank Darabont pitched it to him at the Castle Rock Entertainment company Reiner co-founded in 1987.
That story quickly came to my mind this week when I learned the 78-year-old Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, 68, were found slain in their Los Angeles home, allegedly at the hands of their son, Nick Reiner, 32.
I recalled stories Darabont had told me and others about turning down Reiner’s offer of millions of dollars to direct the film.
He chose to do it himself, shooting it at the Ohio State Reformatory and other locations in Mansfield and north central Ohio during the summer of 1993.
It was released in 1994 and is now regarded as perhaps the best movie of all time.
Darabont told of Reiner’s love for the story during both the 25th and 30th anniversary celebrations of the film in Mansfield. I covered both of those events for Richland Source in 2019 and 2024.
He recounted showing the screenplay during a meeting with Castle Rock executives. It was a script he developed from Stephen King’s novella. Darabont paid just $5,000 for the story’s rights (a check King never even cashed.)
Reiner — son of Hollywood legend Carl Reiner — and the director of great movies like “Stand by Me,” “A Few Good Men,” “When Harry Met Sally,” “The Princess Bride,” “Misery” and “This is Spinal Tap,” told Darabont he loved it.
Reiner offered Darabont, who was not a wealthy man at the time, a few million dollars if he could direct the movie himself, using perhaps Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford in the lead roles.
Cruise was box-office gold, even then.
Darabont politely declined and rolled the dice on doing it himself, turning down a single large check and betting on a percentage of the film’s profits as the director.
“It probably boils down to … you feel like you have been put here for a reason. If not this, then what? If not now, then when?” he asked while speaking at the Renaissance Theatre.
“You can always defer your dream for a buck. But no one remembers you for your bank account when you are gone. They might remember you for your art. They might remember that you reached out and touched their hearts … and that mattered more to me than anything,” Darabont said in August 2024.
“Rob is an exceptional film maker. I think he would have made an excellent movie. But it wouldn’t have been this movie. To Rob’s credit, he was such a booster to the movie. He was such a mentor presence to me,” Darabont told a theatre filled with an audience that loved the movie.
“Rob also understands the passion that goes into art. He is a filmmaker, not a suit,” Darabont said.
According to a CinemaBlend story, Reiner talked about “Shawshank” during the San Diego Comic-Con earlier this year.
“Here’s what happened with that. It was interesting. Frank Darabont brought the project to us. We did some work on it. We helped him develop it a little further, and we thought that … we had sent it to Tom Cruise and he was interested to play the Andy Dufresne character that Tim Robbins plays in it.
“But he said, ‘Well, who’s directing?’ And we said, ‘Frank.’
“And he said, ‘Well, I…’ [Frank Darabont] was a first-time, basically a first-time director at that point. And [Tom Cruise] said, ‘If you direct it, I’ll do it,'” Reiner said.
“And we thought, ‘Hmm, wow. I mean, that would be a real chance to …’ you know. And he was the number one star in America. He’s still a huge star, but I mean, he was big star at the point. And so I said, ‘Okay.’
“And we went to Frank, because we at Castle Rock, we’ve always said, we give you your head, we told you we will let you direct, and that was the whole idea that the lighthouse was a safe harbor for creative people to come.
“We said, ‘Look, we got an opportunity for Tom Cruise, but he wants [me to direct].’ And he says, ‘No, I want to direct.’ And he said, ‘Okay,’ and we said, ‘Okay,’ And we let him do it. And we wound up with Tim Robbins, who’s great, and Morgan Freeman.
“And it’s a great movie and we’re very proud of it. And some people consider it, you know, top 10 movies of all time,” Reiner said.
Despite the rejection, Reiner supported the film’s creation. He and Castle Rock ultimately greenlit “The Shawshank Redemption” production with a $25 million budget.
Without Rob Reiner, there may never have been a “Shawshank Redemption.”
