Em uma entrevista recente com Frank Darabont por Nick Schager para o Yahoo Movies, Darabont primeiro explica sua razão para mudar o final:
When I first read Steve’s [Stephen King] story back a zillion years ago [in 1980’s Dark Forces anthology], I thought, “Wow, that’s a great story,” but I thought that for a movie, it should have a more conclusive sort of feeling.
Ele aponta que a história em si foi a inspiração para ela:
So I was trying to puzzle through what that conclusive ending would be, and he kind of lays the groundwork for that, actually. There’s a line of the story where he contemplates that eventuality. And I thought, well, that seems like a clear marker for me, that Steve laid in there.
O final do filme, claro, se encaixa em uma certa tradição:
When that came to me, it just felt like the kind of Twilight Zone ending that really stays with you. You know, “Time Enough at Last” where Burgess Meredith breaks his glasses — that kind of ending, where you’re like “Oh no, if he’d only waited two more minutes!” I liked the horrendous irony of it.
E também foi alimentado pelos sentimentos do próprio Darabont:
At that time, I was feeling a little bit pissed off at the world. There’s definitely a political element to that movie, which you don’t have to look too hard to see. Though it’s not a political movie, it’s in many ways a very political movie. I was feeling a little angry at the world, and at our country at that time [The Mist was released in 2007], so it felt like a valid way to end a movie. It doesn’t always have to be a happy ending. It shouldn’t always be a happy ending. Having grown up in the ’70s, it wasn’t always a happy ending. And I always loved endings like that.
Chegando à resposta para a pergunta: Darabont pediu a King para entrar antes de filmar:
But I thought, “OK, I’m going to let Steve decide. If Stephen King reads my script and says, ‘Dude, what are you doing, are you out of your mind? You can’t end my story this way,’ then I would actually not have made the movie.” But he read it and said, “Oh, I love this ending. I wish I’d thought of it.” He said that, once a generation, a movie should come along that just really pisses the audience off, and flips their expectations of a happy ending right on the head. He pointed to the original Night of the Living Dead as one of those endings that just scarred you.