Few movies have inspired as much late-night theorizing as Donnie Darko. Richard Kelly’s 2001 cult classic follows Donnie, a troubled teenager who begins seeing visions of Frank, a stranger in a sinister bunny costume who warns him that the world will end in 28 days. From there, the film spirals through time travel, alternate realities, and apocalyptic visions before ending with Donnie’s death and the apparent collapse of the tangent universe.
Even after multiple viewings, Donnie Darko remains difficult to fully decode — and if anyone tells you they understand it fully, they’re probably lying. That’s part of why the film has maintained such a devoted following. Now, 25 years after the film’s release, Kelly is preparing to revisit that strange world.
As first reported by Variety, writer-director Richard Kelly is releasing a sequel book, The Philosophy of Time Travel, later this year. The approximately 800-page novel will be published by Range Literary Publishing and is expected to arrive in the fourth quarter, around the film’s 25th anniversary.
The book picks up 14 months after Donnie’s death and will be told through found documents, including material written from the perspectives of Donnie’s parents, Rose and Eddie. The story will follow the characters as they try to understand what happened to Donnie, the tangent universe and the strange events they collectively experienced.
Why is the Donnie Darko sequel happening now?
Kelly has reportedly spent the past decade writing the book, but he has been working on a potential Donnie Darko sequel for more than 20 years. The filmmaker told Variety that he spent years trying to develop a sequel film, but the story grew too large and complicated to easily bring to the screen.
Kelly’s long-term plan is for the book to serve as the first step toward a larger series of sequels. He hopes The Philosophy of Time Travel can eventually be adapted into an animated or motion-capture film, followed by a live-action movie set 28 years after the original. Kelly has also expressed interest in reuniting the original cast, including Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Drew Barrymore, and Maggie Gyllenhaal.
The timing also gives Kelly a chance to revisit the film as it approaches its 25th anniversary. Donnie Darko initially struggled at the box office after its 2001 release, but it later found a devoted audience through home video and became a defining cult film of the early 2000s. The movie currently holds an 88% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 71 Metascore.
The new book will not be the first attempt to continue the Donnie Darko story. The 2009 direct-to-video film S. Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale followed Donnie’s younger sister, Samantha, but it was made without Kelly’s involvement and received largely negative reviews. It currently holds a 13% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes.
