Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko is an iconic film. Released in the literal immediate aftermath of 9/11, Kelly’s Jake Gyllenhaal-starring film about time travel, disaster, and teenage wastelands may have initially flopped at the box office upon release, but it has built up a gargantuan cult following in the years since. Today, Donnie Darko is a staple of both the overarching horror genre and that very distinct era of movies.
And now, writer-director Richard Kelly has just announced something that fans of Donnie Darko have undoubtedly waited decades to hear: there’s more. Kelly has written a book titled The Philosophy of Time Travel, which is a nearly 800-page book that serves as an immediate follow-up to the story of the 2001 film. But beyond just that, Kelly has revealed that he has ambitious plans to adapt the book into animated or motion-captured films, allowing the actors to reprise their roles as their 2001-era selves, and then even further plans to make a live-action, decades-later sequel with the entire cast reassembled.
Objectively, this is insane. This year is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the original Donnie Darko, which is likely what got the juices flowing for anything like this to even begin to happen. For as much weight as Donnie Darko carries in certain circles (I adore it) and as much of a cult following as it has, it’s never exactly been a cash cow of an endeavor. But in this day and age, in which all IP is ripe for rebooting in one way or another, if Richard Kelly wants to do more Donnie Darko films, by God, we should let him.
Of course, there already was a Donnie Darko sequel, in the form of S. Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale, which was a straight-to-DVD release in 2009 made entirely without the involvement of Kelly. That movie was universally reviled and failed to capitalize on the upswing in notoriety of the original film in the ways that its makers were clearly hoping it would, mostly because it was a bad-faith follow-up with no one meaningful from the original even involved.
The other element at play here is, of course, Kelly’s own history, which has been trouble to say the least. The filmmaker infamously parlayed his Donnie Darko acclaim into making Southland Tales, an absolutely gonzo movie in every way that was met with incredibly divisive responses from audiences and critics alike upon release in 2006. Following that, he wrote and directed the science fiction thriller The Box in 2009 but hasn’t made any feature films since. There have been various projects in various stages of development over the years, such as his Rod Serling biopic, but nothing that has ever come to fruition. By re-devoting himself to Donnie Darko, Kelly stands a chance of making a widely seen comeback, and I certainly hope that is the case.
As for the cast that Kelly is eager to reassemble for future projects, it’s a stacked one, but I think it is within the realm of possibility. Notably, Gyllenhaal has had exclusively great things to say about Kelly and the original film over the years, speaking to how formative an experience it was for the then-young actor so the leading man could return to the role.
Ultimately, it sounds like the future of all of this will likely depend on what happens with The Philosophy of Time Travel itself. Set to release later this year, if Kelly’s on-page sequel plans earn acclaim and the book performs commercially well, then it can serve as a proof-of-concept of sorts for the filmmaker that could lead to his further filmic plans gaining traction. We will just have to wait and see, but I, for one, am extremely jazzed about Kelly cooking up a whole multi-installment arc for this story and will absolutely be getting my hands on his new book as soon as possible.
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