Thirty years ago this week, “The Shawshank Redemption,” set in a fictional Maine prison and based on a Stephen King novella, was released in theaters.
Though at the time it was overlooked by many audiences and critics, today “Shawshank” is known as perhaps one of the most universally loved movies of all time, and is considered by many to be the best adaptation of a King work. Few who see it aren’t moved by its powerful tale of friendship and salvation — a stirring tribute to the strength of the human spirit in the face of incredible odds.
Here are four fascinating facts about both the movie and the novella it’s based on, three decades after “Shawshank” first hit screens.
Shawshank State Prison was inspired by the original Maine State Prison
There are small differences between Stephen King’s 1982 novella “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” and the movie. The setting of the story, however — Shawshank State Prison, in the fictional Maine town of Castle Rock — remains the same. Shawshank itself has been mentioned in many other King stories over the years, including “It,” “Needful Things” and “Under the Dome,” one of many small, interconnected details that King weaves into his works.
Shawshank was based, in part, on the original Maine State Prison in Thomaston, which opened exactly 200 years ago in 1824. At that time, all the cells in the prison were single-occupancy, and were underground. Diseases like tuberculosis ran rampant through the facility. In 1923, the original building burned down, and was replaced with a new facility that stood for another nearly eight decades before it was torn down in 2002. The Maine State Prison is now located in a modern facility in nearby Warren.
As with most Maine-set King movies and TV shows, however, “The Shawshank Redemption” was not filmed in Maine. The former Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio, was chosen as the filming site. The historic prison is now a popular tourist destination in northern Ohio, in part because of its connection to the beloved film.
One character was named after a University of Maine professor
King fans that also are aware of his long history in Maine may have noticed an easter egg in both the book and the movie. The character of Brooks Hatlen, the librarian at Shawshank who ultimately meets a tragic end not long after being released from prison, was named in part after a professor of King’s at the University of Maine: Burt Hatlen, who taught English there for more than 40 years. King credited Hatlen as one of the major influences on him as a young writer.
“Burt was the greatest English teacher I ever had,” King wrote in an afterword to his novel “Lisey’s Story.” “It was he who first showed me the way to the pool, which he called ‘the language-pool, the myth-pool, where we all go down to drink.’ That was in 1968. I have trod the path that leads there often in the years since, and I can think of no better place to spend one’s days; the water is still sweet, and the fish still swim.”
Stephen King’s “Dollar Baby” program helped set the stage for the film
“Shawshank” was directed by Frank Darabont, whose first film back in 1983 was a short adaptation of King’s short story “The Woman in the Room.” The film was the third-ever “Dollar Baby,” a deal King offered to first-time and amateur filmmakers, which allowed them the right to make a non-commercial film based on certain King stories for the price of one dollar.
After the success of Darabont’s Dollar Baby, King and the filmmaker made an informal deal to allow Darabont to someday adapt and direct a version of “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.” In addition to “The Shawshank Redemption,” Darabont went on to direct other King feature film adaptations including “The Green Mile” and “The Mist.” King ended the Dollar Baby program last year after its longtime coordinator, Margaret Morehouse, retired.
“Shawshank” was a box office bomb
The movie came out on Sept. 23, 1994, released in just 33 theaters at first before expanding to nearly 1,000 by early October. At the time, it was far outperformed by other new releases such as “Timecop,” “The River Wild” and “Pulp Fiction.” “The Shawshank Redemption” ended up only making $18 million in its initial theatrical run, before being re-released in theaters in February 1995, after its Oscar nominations were announced, making another $10 million. Still, the film only made a combined domestic total of $28 million, after a $25 million budget. It later went on to make over $80 million in home video sales and rentals.
