As we speak, director Richard Kelly has only helmed three films in his strange career: 2001’s “Donnie Darko,” 2006’s “Southland Tales” and 2009’s “The Box.”
Kelly was only 26 when “Donnie Darko” got released. Before that, he was a young graduate of film studies at the University of Southern California. ‘Darko’ wasn’t even a hit, but garnered a feverishly cultish fanbase on home video. It ended up placing 40th in our 2000s Critics Poll.
His second feature, “Southland Tales” was destroyed by critics when it premiered in competition at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, but that film also garnered a rabid online fanbase in the ensuing years.
The same story happened three years later with the much-maligned “The Box,” and that one basically sealed his doomed fate with the studios. He hasn’t directed a movie since. That’s a 14 year absence for Kelly.
With that being said, Kelly decided to give a very rare interview to The Film Stage, but the outlet was subsequently told beforehand not to ask him about what he’s working on:
I was kindly told not to ask Richard Kelly about any forthcoming projects.
However, what Kelly does mention is that he hasn’t quit moviemaking and that he’s been very busy working on an assortment of projects:
I have so many things in development and have been so rigorously focused on working on all of them, and I’ve been working with studios, major studios on a lot of stuff. There’s so much in the planning stages––and there’s such an ambition to it all––it just takes forever. It’s just so frustrating how long it takes. But I feel like the accumulation of the work will pay off.
Some might call Kelly a one-hit wonder, and maybe he will end up being just that, but his total disappearance has been bewildering. It’s good to know that he is still working on new projects. His 14-year absence at the movies hasn’t been purposeful either. He says that he’s tried very hard to get stuff rolling, but always seemed to hit a dead end:
It would’ve been great for more things to have happened quicker, you know? And for things to have got off the ground. And there’s been a lot of roadblocks on any project. But there’s been, just, lots of roadblocks and lots of hurdles, speed bumps––all sorts of barriers to the greenlight. There’s been blinking green lights that have turned yellow and stuff, and that’s the business.
In 2016, filmmaker Kevin Smith said of Kelly:
He is insanely creative and is not unlike Christopher Nolan. But Nolan wound up in the Warner Bros. system where he got special handling, and he got a lot of money to make huge art films like “Inception”. Richard can be one of our greatest filmmakers. He is right now, but just a lot of people don't realize it. He's still a kid, and someone needs to Nolan that kid.
While we’re at it, if you haven’t seen Kelly’s sci-fi surrealist “The Box,” it is well worth a look and, to my eyes, is the best film he’s directed. It starred Cameron Diaz and James Marsden as a couple who receive a box from a mysterious man (played by Frank Langella) who offers them one million dollars if they press the button sealed on top of the box, but tells them that, once the button has been pushed, someone they do not know will die.
It’s a movie that keeps messing with you, but you stay involved, intrigued by what could possibly happen next. It’s the work of a visionary, someone who refuses to work within the confines of the studio system. I’m still dumbfounded by the bad reviews it garnered fourteen years ago.
So, the mystery behind Kelly continues. He still wants to make movies and there’s a clear attempt at doing just that, but, call it bad luck, or refusing to adhere to studio restrictions, he’s had many hurdles to overcome in trying to greenlight his fourth feature film.
At a Q&A this morning, Gray said "Two Lovers" was the first film he made with creative control. He was far less kind about the three before it, "Little Odessa," "The Yards" and "We Own the Night."