15 years after the release of Richard Kelly’s beguiling original, the director has announced that he has plans for a follow-up to Donnie Darko, and he’s promising “something much bigger and more ambitious to do in that universe.”
Though there’s nothing official in the works at this point, Kelly seemed pretty confident that he’ll be able to get something off the ground (eventually) during an interview with HMV to promote a 4K restoration of the first film that was just released on Blu-ray:
It’s big and expensive and I think there’s time to get to that. I want to make sure we’ve got the budget to do it justice and not to compromise anything. Another story in this world needs resources and we need to have that in place. I need to get my next film out of the gate and then we can go back and look at it.
The original – which told the story of a boy named Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) who becomes trapped in a kind of time-loop involving a mysterious old lady and a terrifying giant rabbit named Frank – became an almost instant cult classic, and is now considered one of the best sci-fi films of all-time by many. It actually already spawned a 2009 sequel called S. Darko, but Kelly had no involvement with it and unfortunately, it was not well received… at all.
It remains to be seen if a proper follow-up ever gets off the ground (it’s worth noting that Kelly also said he planned to make a Southland Tales sequel many years ago), but it sounds like the director will be focusing on a different project first for the time being.
Tell us, do you think a Donnie Darko sequel is a good idea, or should such a classic remain untouched? Be sure to share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.
