Nothing about Donnie Darko is normal or straightforward or easy, from its use of time travel to its more expository Director’s Cut to the impactful-if-confusing ending for all the characters. Though Jake Gyllenhaal‘s titular hero…ish figure and his rabbit-eared hallucination have remained icons of cult cinema for 25 years now, Richard Kelly’s attempts to craft a sequel went unrealized for years. But that all changed in the most massive of ways, as Kelly has an official sequel on the way, and plans much more.
As much as I’d love to giddily blurt out as many details at once as possible, it’s probably easier for everyone else to understand if I lay Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko plans out sequentially.
Step 1. Donnie Darko’s Story Will Continue In The Novel “The Philosophy of Time Travel”
Anyone who picks up The Philosophy of Time Travel expecting it to be a general pop-psych look at the sci-fi concept will no doubt be confused, because this is actually the title of the sequel novel that Richard Kelly has been working on for the past decade, and has been conceiving for far longer.
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Quick Facts For Richard Kelly’s The Philosophy Of Time Travel
- Release Date: Q4 2026 (likely timed to Donnie Darko‘s 25th anniversary on Oct. 26)
- Length: ~ 800 pages
- Publisher: Range Literary Publishing
- Plot: Initially set in 1988, during the direct aftermath of the movie’s events, the novel will follow the wide variety of characters introduced in the movie, but who aren’t necessarily the people fans think they are, before jumping forward 28 years into the future.
- Format: A collection of “found” documents written and compiled by Donnie’s parents Rose and Eddie Darko
- Preorder the new novel HERE!
It sounds like a heady concept for a sequel to any movie, but I do love the idea that the events that Donnie witnessed within the tangent universe aren’t necessarily reflective of what all the characters would do in other circumstances. As Kelly explained per Variety, everyone affected by the 28-day “collective dream” comes together as a community to figure out what happened, with something like a cult forming. In his words:
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. And there are characters who are villainous in the movie who you realize in real life they’re not villainous at all; they might have done horrible things in the dream of the first movie, but when you meet them in the reality of the sequel, they’re trying to process why they did horrible things in this dream, and they’re coming to terms with it and they’re analyzing it just like the fans are analyzing the movie.
One of the movie’s more memorable moments, at least to me, is the shot at the end where Mary McCormack’s Rose shares a distantly familiar moment with Jena Malone’s Gretchen, despite neither seemingly crossing paths much in the tangent-verse. Because it makes it clear to audiences that the characters are not only dealing with the aftermath individually, but also with wormhole-y connective tissues tethering certain people together.
Kelly also says that character who appear in minimal scenes will still get developed and expanded stories for the sequel novel. As much as I don’t want to spend any more time with Seth Rogen‘s Ricky Danforth, it’s interesting to think about him not being a total douchenozzle.
The novel’s synopsis notes that there will be “official” government files and interview transcriptions in there, wuth Rose and Eddie getting invested in a “widening investigation that reaches from the Oval Office to the Mojave Desert,” all while “FBI surveillance teams, FAA officials, USC professors, and a mysterious circle of trackers and financiers” attempt to solve the mystery behind the discovery of “celestial fluid” and Roberta Sparrow’s seemingly prophetic book.
Step 2. An Animated/Motion-Capture Movie Covering The First Part Of The Sequel
It sounds like Richard Kelly’s early sequel plans were more centered on the distant future, and that he only realized later that showing fans what played out right after the movie was key. But given the general impossibility of filming those events 25 years later without endless amounts of de-aging required for live-action, Kelly’s plan is to utilize motion-capture and animation techniques to keep the same star-studded cast. Would the all return? That remains to be seen, but Kelly is optimistic, saying:
I’ve kept in touch with all the cast over the years. I’m fairly certain they’re aware that I’ve been working on all this stuff, everything. . . . My caveat with doing a real sequel was that I want to reunite the original cast, and I want to take it onto a gigantic scale and that takes time and it has a price tag and it’s hard to pull this off because it’s multiple movies.
Even though the previously released sequel S. Darko brought back Samantha Darko actress Daveigh Chase, Kelly was not involved in the production at all, and presumably won’t be keeping any of those events as canonical for his sequel. No complaints here, since that movie was a slog, and I’ll be much more excited to see her share the screen anew with McCormack, Holmes Osborne, and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Oh, right, we didn’t get to that step yet.
Step 3. A Live-Action Movie Set 28 Years Later With The Original Cast (Hopefully)
Don’t worry about Richard Kelly being infected by the Rage virus. He’s not making any 28 Days Later sequels here; just Darko. To follow up on the animated direct sequel, the director and novelist wants to go live-action once the novel jumps into the future. (Which is still our past.) As he put it:
Should it happen, there would be a gigantic time jump of 28 years or so, and where the actors, should they want to play their roles live and in the flesh, that would be wonderful, too. So we’ll see what happens.
For all his optimism and belief that the movie’s ever-growing fanbase justifies a return to this universe, Kelly says he hasn’t actually talked to anyone from the cast yet about taking part in the movie sequels. He wants the novel’s release to be its own proof of concept that bringing the band back together is a good idea. He said:
I never want to put pressure on anyone or make anyone feel like they have to give me an answer. That’s ultimately going to be a decision that the whole cast, with each individual deciding what they want to do, and they’re going to have this big gigantic book to read to see what happens to their character. . . . I love my cast. I would love to reunite with all these wonderful actors, and now it’s just sort of up for the marketplace to decide.
The “Nick Venable” part of that marketplace will be standing, book-in-hand, bellowing for all the original cast members to return. It feels a little weird to dive this hard back into Richard Kelly’s creations after being duped in part by Southland Tales and The Box, but anything for Donnie Darko. Or for Frank, really. But I’m not supposed to tell anyone I’ve been seeing him…