Stephen King's 189-Minute Fantasy Epic Becomes a Free Streaming Sensation

With The Shawshank Redemption and The Walking Dead on his resume, it's no wonder that director Frank Darabont works as infrequently as he does. The Shawshank Redemption is arguably one of the biggest home-video hits of all time, while The Walking Dead has spawned an uncommonly resilient television franchise. As the director of the former and the creator of the latter, Darabont is likely set for life. His most recent movie was The Mist, which was released to positive reviews and solid box-office reception in 2007. Like so many of his previous movies, The Mist has found a larger audience at home. Now, Darabont's biggest box-office hit appears to have had a resurgence on free streaming, nearly three decades after its original release.

Like The Shawshank Redemption, which famously underperformed at the box office in its original run, Darabont's 1999 follow-up was based on a story by Stephen King. By this time, The Shawshank Redemption had found tremendous success at home and Darabont was a hot commodity in the industry. The movie was produced on a hefty $65 million budget, with Tom Hanks in the lead role. For context, this is roughly the same budget assigned to Saving Private Ryan, and significantly higher than the reported $52 million cost of Apollo 13.