A colossal failure upon release, a cult hit today, this terrifying and thrilling film is a must-see!

Donnie Darko, on the other hand, is a scary, funny, moving, rather unclassifiable, surreal film, at the crossroads of several genres. The story of sixteen-year-old Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal). Intelligent and blessed with a great imagination, his friend Frankie, a being that only he can see and hear.

When Donnie miraculously survives an accident, Frank offers him a strange deal. The end of the world is near and the latter must fulfill his destiny. Strange things are happening in the quiet little town, but Donnie knows that behind it all there are unspeakable secrets…

After a very limited theatrical release on October 26, 2001, the Richard Kelly film was completely pulled from the poster in the United States, only to return to theaters a year later. Suffice it to say, his career at home is completely dead.

Race results? A logical disaster at the international box office, grossing over $7 million. Released here in January 2002, the film attracted only 73,275 viewers. This shows the violence of the blow.

It’s the excellent word-of-mouth over the years surrounding this very intense first film, with its sometimes destabilizing but intelligent and fascinating tone-destroying that has generously boosted DVD sales and rentals, and In the end Second chance on this very original piece.

“The fact that it was at the crossroads of genres was a hard sell, especially at the time. But even today, every film has to fit into a specific box, it drives me crazy.” His director told us in July 2019, who came to support his film’s theatrical release.

He also explained that he was still surprised by the aura surrounding his work: “It’s always surprising, but also encouraging. I hope that I can continue to tell my own stories and not have to tell other people’s stories that I care less about. It’s reassuring to know that people still feel a connection to this story, it means that I can continue to offer my ideas.”

It cannot be said that the initial trajectory of Richard Kelly after this film, unfortunately, did not really bring him luck. Four years later, his second film, Southland Tales, starring Dwayne Johnson, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Seann William Scott, was released to general indifference. Made for $20 million, it grossed less than $375,000… Richard Kelly hasn’t done anything since the 2009 thriller The Box.

A Helping Hand from Christopher Nolan

If Donnie Darko Unfortunately, it didn’t do wonders at the box office, but it did benefit from a rather unexpected boost from Christopher Nolan. An interesting post published by the site Collider in January 2021 goes back to the delicious anecdote.

Richard Kelly’s film was presented at the Sundance Film Festival the same year as Christopher Nolan’s Memento. The director’s future wife and producing partner, Emma Thomas, liked his script so much that she passed it on to her friend Aaron Ryder, then an executive at the production company Newmarket Films. This put an option on Nolan’s film script, which had a budget of $4.5 million.

However, no distributors showed interest, so Newmarket Films decided to distribute the film themselves. When Memento was finally released in theaters in the United States in March 2001, its success, due in large part to tremendous word of mouth, allowed it to gross approximately $25 million in the United States. With this success, Nolan now had an attentive ear at the top of the production house.

It turns out that Donnie Darko and Memento are both produced by Newmarket Films. But where Memento found its way into theaters, the future of Kelly’s film “looked sad” He will say it himself. The company had no idea how to sell it, so they considered launching it into the direct-to-video market.

After receiving a phone call inviting him to reconsider his position on the future of Donnie Darko, Aaron Ryder arranged a screening with top Newmarket Films executives Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas. At the end of the testimony, both of them turned to the leaders and said: You should distribute and release this movie! So it has been done with mixed results that we know of.