After Southland Tales wowed a handful of critics but baffled everyone else last fall, Richard Kelly could really use a break. Having someone else direct a sequel to your most popular movie is probably not the solution he needs. ScreenDaily is reporting that a sequel to Donnie Darko, titled S. Darko, is in the works, and will be offered to potential buyers at Cannes. Chris Fisher, whose previous credits include movies that surely must be classics, like Rampage: The Hillside Strangler Murders and Dirty, will be directing. (OK, to be fair, he also directed an episode of Chuck, a TV show that is genuinely good).
I'm not among the the Donnie Darko devoted, but I imagine for fans of the original movie, this a moment to shake your fists at the sky and ask, “Why, God, why?!?!” Unfortunately I have no answer for you. One member of the original cast, Daviegh Chase, will return as Samantha Darko, Donnie's younger sister; other than that the rest of the cast seems to be newbies, so it's not like the whole gang was anxious to do another one. Richard Kelly won't even be involved as a producer, so you get the feeling he's not terribly excited about it. The plot revolves around Samantha and her best friend Corey on a road trip, when they are suddenly plagued by visions. The only other thing we know about the plot comes from Simon Crowe, who will be selling the film at Cannes: "Donnie's not in [the new film] but there are meteorites and rabbits."
Yeah, I'm with you. This sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. I guess since Southland Tales was such a disaster Kelly can't really fall much further, but this kind of seems like kicking a man while he's down. Why did he agree to this? How is Chris Fisher going to be able to go from making movies about the Hillside Strangler to taking on a much-beloved movie that isn't all about exploitation horror? There's so many questions to ask, and maybe the film buyers at Cannes will do us all a favor by refusing to pick this one up. We'll never get all our answers, but somehow that seems like the best of our options.
