Frank Darabont has briefly exited retirement to direct a couple of Stranger Things episodes. But could it lead to a permanent return?

Frank Darabont has only directed four feature films, a pretty slim filmography by the standards of most directors. However, when three of those films are The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and The Mist, a trio of classic Stephen King adaptations, it makes you wonder why Darabont’s body of work as a director isn’t larger.

After all, Frank Darabont’s disappearance from the world of film directing doesn’t appear to be some kind of self-imposed exile such as the one that Quentin Tarantino is planning for himself.

Instead, Darabont’s retreat from filmmaking seemed to happen around the time that he became embroiled in a bitter creative and ultimately, legal dispute over the future of AMC’s The Walking Dead show, which he steered to...