Twenty-five years after Donnie Darko first hit theaters, Richard Kelly is finally continuing the story.
The writer and director of the 2001 cult sci-fi film has written an official sequel novel titled The Philosophy of Time Travel. The book is expected to run more than 800 pages and release later this year as part of Donnie Darko’s 25th anniversary celebration.
Kelly revealed the project in a new interview with Variety, explaining that he has been developing the story for years.
What is The Philosophy of Time Travel about?
The novel picks up immediately after the events of Donnie Darko.
On October 4, 1988, a jet engine falls from the sky and crashes into Donnie’s bedroom, killing him. From there, the new story follows his parents, Rose and Eddie Darko, as they try to understand exactly what happened to their son.
According to the official synopsis shared by The Film Stage, the book covers roughly the next 18 months and is presented through recovered government transcripts, secretly recorded conversations, early emails, and other documents.
Rose and Eddie’s search eventually pulls them into a much larger investigation involving the FBI, FAA, government officials, academics, and a mysterious group connected to what happened in October 1988.
The story will also dig much deeper into the mythology that was only partially explained in the original movie, including Tangent Universes, Living Receivers, the Manipulated, and Roberta Sparrow’s mysterious book, The Philosophy of Time Travel.
The sequel will show what happened after Donnie died
One of the more interesting parts of Kelly’s plan is that the characters from the original movie apparently remember more than viewers might expect.
Kelly told Variety that many of the people involved in Donnie’s story were effectively pulled into the Tangent Universe together and are left trying to make sense of what they experienced.
That means characters who appeared villainous during the original movie may look very different once we see them outside that alternate reality.
Kelly explained that the survivors eventually begin connecting with one another as they try to understand the strange shared experience surrounding Donnie’s death.
Richard Kelly has been working on this for more than a decade
Kelly has apparently been working on the material for more than ten years, with some of the ideas behind it going back nearly two decades. He originally envisioned the continuation as a movie, but the story kept expanding.
The result is the enormous novel now on the way.
According to Kelly, he would eventually like to adapt the novel as an animated or motion-capture movie. After that, his plan becomes even more ambitious.
Kelly wants to continue the story with a live-action project that jumps roughly 28 years into the future, opening the door to additional Donnie Darko movies and potentially the return of actors from the original film.
The novel itself could essentially act as the foundation for that project.
Kelly told Variety that part of the reason he wanted to fully write the story was so he would have something substantial to show the original cast when approaching them about returning.
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