Richard Kelly became a celebrated cult film talent with his first feature film Donnie Darko. After two more works, he has not made another film to date. Apparently, his past won’t let him go.
Rarely do film debuts come along that are as spectacular and visionary as Donnie Darko. Director Richard Kelly only later became a young cult director with this work, and then almost shot his career down in a similarly spectacular way.
After a total of three films and 15 years later, the question remains whether Kelly will return to the director’s chair. The answer is as complex as the time travel theory in Donnie Darko.
Richard Kelly created a sci-fi masterpiece when he was only in his mid-20s
A creepy man in a rabbit costume reveals to teenager Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) that the world will end in 28 days. This apocalyptic prophecy marks the beginning of Kelly’s debut, which he started shooting at the age of just 24. What follows is a melancholy pop mix of high school movie, sci-fi time travel, and dark psychological thriller that took some time to win over movie fans.
Watch another trailer for Donnie Darko here:
Since the movie advertised a plane crash and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 happened shortly before the film’s release, the marketing for Kelly’s feature film debut was greatly reduced. Donnie Darko initially flopped and only developed into a hotly debated cult success in the years following its release on DVD.
In the list of the 50 best independent films compiled by the renowned Empire magazine, for example, the film made it to number three behind Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets and Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. Richard Kelly was thus retrospectively declared a directing prodigy, who a few years after Donnie Darko attracted attention with less positive headlines.
Sci-Fi Excess Southland Tales almost destroyed Richard Kelly’s career
Kelly’s second feature film is the kind of overambitious spectacle where the line between genius and madness is very thin. Southland Tales premiered at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival as an unfinished, 160-minute rough cut and received extremely negative reviews. Despite stars like Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Justin Timberlake, the sci-fi film, as a shorter, edited version in theaters with a budget of $17 million, failed to even make a million dollars.
The commercial downfall of Southland Tales could be related to the fact that the director wildly throws together topics such as World War III, megalomaniacal scientists, alternative energy sources, confusion games, time cracks, conspiracy theories and Bible quotations. In comparison, Donnie Darko, which is not exactly easy to decode, seems like a straightforward, simple mainstream blockbuster.
Here you can watch another Southland Tales trailer:
Richard Kelly can’t let go of his science fiction past
In the years following The Box, the director talked about planned projects such as a 3D thriller that never came to fruition. It seemed as if Kelly was getting lost in ideas and gradually saying goodbye to the film business. In more recent interviews, in which he would rather not be asked about upcoming projects at all, he prefers to talk about the past.
In particular, Southland Tales, Kelly’s most infamous disaster, seems to have a hold on the director. The director still seems to want to delve further into the weird sci-fi universe. In 2020, he explained in a post on X:
SouthlandTales is a six-chapter saga. The existing film covers the second half. I wrote graphic novels with @brettweldele that cover the first three chapters. I have completed an ambitious new script that uses the novels as a blueprint for an ambitious new film. SouthlandNow
— Richard Kelly (@JRichardKelly) April 5, 2020
Southland Tales is a saga of six chapters. The existing film covers the second half. I co-wrote graphic novels with Brett Weldele that cover the first three chapters. I have completed an ambitious new screenplay that uses the books as a blueprint for an ambitious new movie.
Also interesting: He created what was probably the most legendary adventure series of the 2000s and then a mega flop
In an interview with Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow) this year, Kelly talked about how he still sees Southland Tales as unfinished. When Schoenbrun asks him whether he wants to finish the film itself or take the story from it and transfer it to another work, Kelly replies:
For me, it’s all one and the same. I hope to expand and realize the entire six chapters and the graphic novel. We’ll see. I’ll keep drumming for it.
As early as 2021, he was able to release the so-called Cannes Cut, the 160-minute original version, as bonus material on a new Blu-ray edition in the USA.
Kelly spoke to Comic Book about how he would love to create a six-hour version of Southland Tales:
So it’s like a six-chapter story, but it would be presented in two epic films, like a big double feature that could ideally exist on a streaming platform that is better suited for these kinds of long stories.
If people want to jump to the chapters, they would have that option, but in an ideal world, it would be presented as a six-hour project split into two feature-length films.
