Indiana Jones and the Angry Scribe: Darabont Feels Slighted

Frank Darabont says he’s responsible for Karen Allen working again, but won’t take credit or blame for Shia LeBeouf. 

Who wrote Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? When the credits roll at the end of the movie, you’ll see “written by David Koepp.” The Spider-Man scripter may be the one who wrote the final draft, but Frank Darabont, the writer of the original version thinks there’s plenty of his material in there as well.

 Darabont worked on the script in 2002, and while it’s known that some of his material remained in the film–he set the story in the 1950s and brought back Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen)–he did, in November, tell the MTV Movie Blog that he had heard from people around the shoot that, “You know, they’re using more of your ideas here than you may have thought.” (Though Darabont makes it clear that he is NOT responsible for Shia LeBeouf’s character. Okay.) At that point, Darabont said he expected that the matter of writing credit would go to arbitration with the Writers’ Guild.

Now the MTV Movie Blog reports that there never was even a discussion about credit. Darabont told them:

“Nope. Not on this one…I know there are some common elements to what I gave Steven [Spielberg] and what was eventually shot, but I guess not enough to warrant credit. It’s clearly a disappointment, especially after Steven loved my script.”   

Darabont seems like he’s trying not to sound bitter and said that he wouldn’t hesitate to work with Spielberg again. George Lucas? Not likely–after all, it was Lucas who supposedly passed on the Darabont draft that Spielberg reportedly loved. Regarding Lucas, Darabont said:

“Honestly our storytelling sensibilities have diverged to the point where that would be a pointless exercise.”

Maybe I’m overreading, but I think he’s saying, “Lucas wouldn’t be able to tell a good story if you spotted him ‘once upon a time’ and ‘happily ever after.”