Director Richard Kelly said he won't let anyone else touch the Donnie Darko franchise and provided an update on the long-gestating sequel.
In conversation with ComicBook while promoting the Blu-ray release of Southland Tales, Kelly revealed that he'll never again let someone touch the Donnie Darko property. "I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about anything Donnie Darko related," Kelly said. "But it would be over my cold, dead body that I would ever allow anyone to do anything in that world without my overwhelming contribution and control. And I would be very, very, very excited to revisit that world in a very ambitious way."
Released in 2001, Donnie Darko quickly became a cult hit and helped launch the careers of both Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal. In 2009, a sequel focusing on Donnie's sister, S. Darko, was released. A critical and commercial failure, Kelly claims he had no input on the film as he didn't own the rights at the time. His latest comments indicate that's no longer the case.
Earlier this week, Kelly spoke to ComingSoon about a proper follow-up to the movie, something he's been teasing has been in the works for years. "I’m probably not allowed to say anything more than there has been an enormous amount of work completed. I’m hopeful that we might get to explore that world in a very big and exciting way. But we’ll see what happens. But there has been a lot of work done. A lot of work has been done."
There's no indication of whether the movie would see the return of the Gyllenhaals or will focus on a different corner of the universe. The first film ended with Donnie sacrificing himself, but its time-bending plot would certainly allow for some sort of return.
Outside of the Donnie Darko universe, Kelly, who has only made a handful of films since his breakout, is working on a biopic about Twilight Zone creator and host Rod Serling. In that same interview with ComingSoon, Kelly explained the unique way he's approaching the movie.
"We’ve been working closely with Anne Serling, Rod’s daughter," Kelly said. "I’ve adapted her memoir that she published about her father and his life and it’s a very ambitious approach to a biopic and it involves a lot of fantasy elements. There is a big fantasy science fiction concept in the sort of approach that we’re taking to try and tell the story of his life. So, that’s a really complicated, difficult needle to thread, we are definitely working on it and hopefully, at some point, we’ll get that project off the ground and it’s really just about getting all of the elements to work."
Source: ComicBook, ComingSoon