A movie experimenting with a blend of teenage angst, dark humor, and mind-bending science fiction would be considered a huge risk even today, when the appetite for original and off-beat stories is much higher in comparison to, say, two decades earlier. So, it would not come as a surprise that the 2001 Richard Kelly-directed movie Donnie Darko, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, failed at the box office at the time of its release. Despite that, the movie achieved cult status due to its unique concept and a formidable performance from the main lead.

Now, after 25 years, the director is out with a sequel to the film, but it is a book set for release this year.

According to an exclusive report by Variety, Richard Kelly, the director of the first movie, will publish a book later this year that continues Donnie Darko's story. It is Range Literary Publishing's first book to be published. The book, titled The Philosophy of Time Travel, is set in 1988, right after the first movie. The 800-page book will explore the events following Jake Gyllenhaal’s character’s death in the original movie. 

Written by Kelly over the past 10 years, The Philosophy of Time Travel will be released in the fourth quarter of the year (in accordance with the 25th anniversary of Donnie Darko on October 26) and is currently available for preorder at Barnes and Noble and Amazon. In the upcoming months, a precise date for the sale will be revealed.

Kelly claims in his interview with Variety that the book sequel is just the beginning of a bigger strategy to produce several Donnie Darko movie sequels. The filmmaker intends to turn this book into an animated/motion-capture film before continuing the narrative with a live-action feature set 28 years in the future.

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A little further in the interview, he went into the nitty-gritties of his vision for the sequels to his cult classic movie. 

Describing the sequel's massive scope, Richard Kelly explained that the narrative begins during the fourteen months following Donnie's death before employing a substantial time jump of twenty-eight years into the future. According to Kelly, the story features a wealth of exciting developments set around 2015 and 2016 and onward, marking the starting point for the new material.

He further detailed that this initial section of the sequel is envisioned as animation, with the potential - should circumstances align - for a massive twenty-eight-year time jump that could welcome the original actors back to reprise their roles live and in the flesh, concluding that they would wait to see how the project unfolds.

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Are you excited to read the sequel to Donnie Darko’s story? Do let us know.