I Weep For DONNIE DARKO And Richard Kelly.

Reader Comments

1. jessekale 05/09/2008 @ 9:34am

   Well I hated the first I guess I’ll hate the second as well.

2. blackula jonez 05/09/2008 @ 9:56am

   whats next, a fight club sequel

3. Blake 05/09/2008 @ 10:36am

   If Kelly was involved in the slightest here it would at least be appealing. Seemed like at one point there was going to be a TV series or Cable show spin off which in the right hands would have been fun.

   The biggest question in this type of deal is, wasn’t everything that needed to be said already said? What’s left to really say?

4. chjdc 05/09/2008 @ 10:46am

   Ouch.  Perhaps someone should keep a list of the top 10 bad movie decisions this year.  - though I don’t know that anyone will top this.

5. Michael Guillen 05/09/2008 @ 11:13am

   This surprises you?  Misguided remakes and sequels are the death throes of this industry.  But I try to look at the good side: if the industry collapses, it leaves the art form wide open.

6. Blake 05/09/2008 @ 11:50am

   It makes me want to open up a window and shout:

   D-O-N-K-E-Y B-A-L-L-S!

7. MechaYakuza 05/09/2008 @ 1:52pm

   I was so pumped for and loved the original, and wept when it became the emo ‘it’ movie 5 years later :(

8. kenixfan 05/09/2008 @ 1:58pm

   how about a coherent cut of Southland Tales first?

9. kinkybob 05/09/2008 @ 2:06pm

   Sigh… i’m seriously not surprised anymore. I love Donnie Darko… remaking should be illegal…

10. abjectnuttiness 05/09/2008 @ 2:27pm

    How frigging odd!  I mean, this makes zero sense at all!  There is absolutely no reason for a sequel to the original in the slightest.

    Just boggles the mind man.

11. thekinginyellow 05/09/2008 @ 2:47pm

    this makes perfect sense.  kelly probably has very little ownership rights to the film if any at all.  the studios can do what they want with whatever they own.

    i hang my head and sigh.  i guess it will be a direct to dvd/sci-fi channel midnight movie.  why?  there is no point to do this “sequel” other than for someone to put a little extra money in their pockets.

12. ForgottenFilms 05/09/2008 @ 2:53pm

    Richard Kelly should halt this atrocious idea and make a prequel called
    Roberta Sparrow. Now THAT’S A MOVIE!

13. MikeOutWest 05/09/2008 @ 4:17pm

    I guess this is the price Kelly has to pay for Southland Tales…

    Its kind of scary that someone looked at the numbers for Darko’s dvd sales and thought “hey, let’s spin out a cheap sequel. Hmm, the main character died in the first movie...lets focus on his little sister, who showed no latent psychosis or ability to affect time in the first movie...”.

    Being a bit of a cynic of late, I’m wondering if the scenario is something like this - Kelly signed away the rights to a sequel as part of his deal for creative control of Southland Tales, safe in the knowledge that no one could possibly come up with a storyline which could be even tenuously linked to the original movie. meanwhile, as Kelly was doing his best Coppolla-circa-Apocalypse-Now impression, some writer came up with a coming-of-age, supernaturally tinged story concerning a young girl entering adulthood, a la Carrie, and it’s been re-jigged to fit it’s new title,S.Darko.

    In the meantime, Donnie Darko will undergo a little re-editing and be re-released with a special 2 minute epilogue showing the younger sister in some eerie manner, thereby cueing up the sequel.Then there’ll be the special two movie boxset with special commentary by Richard Kelly during which he profusely apologises for not stopping this monstrosity being made.

    look on the bright side kids - we’re all Twitch afficionados - we watch strange and wonderful movies from all over the world. We don’t have to give this the time of day if we don’t want to...unless by some miracle lightning strikes twice....nah…

14. samadhi 05/10/2008 @ 10:39am

    Awesome. The first movie was good. I bet this sequel will be even better.

15. sarkoffagus 05/12/2008 @ 4:56am

    Wait. Are you saying you didn’t like the HIGHLANDER sequels?

16. Todd Brown 05/12/2008 @ 8:33am

    Didn’t like is too kind by far.  The second Highlander film, in particular, is an absolute abomination.

17. sarkoffagus 05/13/2008 @ 5:04am

    But THE QUICKENING explains that they aren’t immortals, they’re aliens. That’s the coolest thing ever!

18. Todd Brown 05/13/2008 @ 7:42am

    Only if by coolest thing ever you mean complete and utter bullshit.  Heh.  The original Highlander was a complete story, totally self contained and finished in and of itself.  To make the sequel The Quickening not only had to resurrect dead characters but it completely rewrote the underlying mythology of the first and that just pisses me off to no end.

19. MikeOutWest 05/14/2008 @ 12:19am

    The Quickening was bad, no matter which edit you saw. Sean Connery’s delivery of his first lines sums it up perfectly. The Magician might have worked if Mario Van Peebles hadn’t ripped off Clancy Brown’s performance from the first movie. End Game took all that was good about the original and destroyed it totally (Donnie Yen was as cool as ever though). Haven’t seen the last incarnation although there is a review for it on my site.

    Getting back to the subject at hand, perhaps the Darko sequel will also show that the Darko family are from the planet Geist. Or maybe the daughter ends up in a town overrun by Aliens (TM)...or maybe redneck cannibals...or or Radioactive cannibals...or maybe she’s attacked in her dreams by a murdered child molester...or maybe she and her pals spend a night at Crystal Lake...or maybe she finds an enigmatic puzzle box that unlocks a gateway to hell…

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