It’s a very, very mad world: A book sequel to the 2001 cult classic film “Donnie Darko” will be releasing later this year from filmmaker Richard Kelly and Range Literary Publishing. Titled, “The Philosophy of Time Travel,” the approximately 800-page book will take place in 1988, in the immediate aftermath of the original film, which famously ended with the death of Jake Gyllenhaal’s titular Donnie Darko, a Southern California teen who spends the better part of the movie in a dreamlike state while anticipating the end of the world. Written by Kelly over the past 10 years, “The Philosophy of Time Travel” will debut in Q4 (in line with the 25th anniversary of “Donnie Darko” on Oct. 26) and is now available for preorder at Barnes and Noble and Amazon.
An specific sale date will be announced in the coming months. Produced by Flower Films, “Donnie Darko” debuted at Sundance in 2001 and was distributed theatrically by Newmarket Films later that year. Along with Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Drew Barrymore, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mary McDonnell, Holmes Osborne, Katharine Ross, Patrick Swayze, Noah Wyle, and Seth Rogen.
According to Kelly, the book sequel is the first step in a larger plan to make multiple “Donnie Darko” film sequels. The filmmaker’s goal is to have this novel adapted into an animated/motion-capture movie and then continue to the story with a live-action project that jumps 28 years into the future. So we’ll see what happens.” Kelly (who previously release “The Donnie Darko” book, a behind-the-scenes look at the original film) says that while the writing of the “Donnie Darko” book sequel has taken place over the last 10 years, he’s actually spent more than two decades trying to figure out how to make a sequel film work through.
There have been “all sorts of permutations and there have been multiple parent companies and studios that have been involved in the whole process” amid rights issues, according to Kelly. But in my mind, that’s what it should be. Just given the way this movie has connected with people for so long.
So I’ve set out to just build the whole thing out and map the entire thing out, knowing that there’s a lot of challenges associated with doing that.” He continued: I think what I realized as the story got bigger and bigger and bigger is that I needed to go back in time and away from the sequel, and tell the story of what happens in the 14 months after Donnie’s death, like immediately after his death, because there’s so much essential information in that section of the sequel. And in my mind, I was like, why don’t I actually put together a novel and just publish that part of the sequel as a novel, so that I can release it into the world, and that will set the ship on its voyage to wherever this goes. And so this, in my mind, is the final puzzle piece to launching this sequel and to see what becomes of it.” While Kelly is keeping the full plot details of the “Donnie Darko” book sequel, “The Philosophy of Time Travel,” under wraps, Variety has an exclusive look at the cover (seen below) and a teaser video (above), along with Kelly’s own description for the project: “I think there’s a lot of surprises when you realize who the characters really are in the reality of Southern California, how they were drawn into this collective dream.
They were drawn into this thing called the tangent universe, this lunar month, this dream that lasted for 28 days that they collectively all experienced together, and they’re sort of all trying to piece it together. And they form this sort of support group that turns into a cult, in a way, and they all come together. There’s a lot of surprises about who they are, and I think for me it was really gratifying to see all the characters start to interact with each other in response to Donnie’s death, and they all become really close friends.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
