Pushing Richard Kelly’s Buttons

The "Donnie Darko" director on the WTF genre, Philip K. Dick and his new movie "The Box."

There’s mention in the film of collecting sci-fi comics. Did you grow up with any of that?

Those “Astounding Science Fiction” books are the DNA of this film. It feels like it could be something from one of those old science fiction serials. For me, I was more a child of Stephen King and Philip K. Dick as I got a little older and more sophisticated in my tastes. Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, all these wonderful writers who were obviously some of the pioneers of 20th-century science fiction.

Speaking of whom, and the filmmaking merits of “Blade Runner” notwithstanding, why can’t anyone seem to do onscreen justice to the work of Philip K. Dick?

It’s really tricky. I hope one day to get my shot. “Southland Tales” was very influenced by Philip K. Dick. He did these near-future Southern California stories that had all this wonderful, advanced technology that was almost beyond our potential in the near future. It was part of his satirical glimpse of where we’re headed. Also, in a lot of his novels, the first half has a very commercial blockbuster premise, but in the second half, it becomes more esoteric, personal and stream-of-consciousness in a way. Maybe that’s hard for people to figure out how to adapt it into a screenplay. But we’ll keep trying, and I’m glad people keep trying with varying degrees of success because Philip K. Dick is one of our best authors. “The Man in the High Castle” or “Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said” have a lot of potential, but there are so many. At some point, an attempt will be made on almost everything before the apocalypse happens. [laughs]

Now that you’ve moved on to “The Box,” how disheartening was the mixed reaction to “Southland Tales” from Cannes onward?

It was frustrating, and it was to the point where I was like, “I want to get ‘Southland Tales’ as finished as I can get it.” I still feel like it’s an unfinished film, but I’m proud that I got it that far. It’s such a challenging film on so many levels that I was just glad to be able to have “The Box” to move straight into. I’m so grateful that Cameron Diaz signed on because all of a sudden, it was like: “Okay, we can get a proper budget for this and set this up at a studio.” It was great to feel like I could try something much more in the mainstream.

So you want to continue working within the studio system?

Yeah, I would very much love to stay in the studio business. At the same time, I would love to be able to expand and branch out. I’ve got my new script and I feel like it’s very, very commercial, probably the most accessible thing I’ve ever written. So maybe I’m trying to make things a little easier. [laughs] But I’ll never forget “Donnie Darko,” which is a movie that people continue to appreciate and revisit. When it was released at Sundance, everyone was like, “This is a mess. It makes no sense. No one will ever see this movie. It’s unreleasable,” and it barely got released. Almost nine years after we made the film, people are still talking about it, and that makes me remember where I came from. Maybe that’s why I still try to push the envelope in terms of experimental narrative, ideas or technique.

Aren’t you worried about the potential creative compromises associated with studio projects?

I was very fortunate with Warner Bros. to have them embrace this story, to understand the nature of it. I had the best of both worlds, where I could still make a personal film but one that was viable enough to give a wide release to. Given the state of the independent film business right now, I can’t survive. I’d rather just do what I can to stay in the studio business because I need to make a living. [laughs] You put all this work, blood, sweat and tears into a movie, you want it to be seen by as many people as possible, and for the people who put the money up to get their money back.

I’m doing everything I can to hold onto my sensibility and make the kind of movies that I want to see: one that makes my head spin, and makes me want to come back and see it two or three times in the theater. That’s my ultimate film. “A Serious Man,” the Coen brothers film, is probably my favorite movie of the year. I’ve seen it three times. When the credits started to roll in that movie, I looked around and everyone in the theater was like, “What the fuck did I just see?” It was a wonderful feeling. Some of the best memories I have of going to the movies are the WTF movies. Maybe that should be a new genre.

Although it’s relatively minor, I believe you’ve committed a crime against cinema. How could you have changed the opening sequence in your “Donnie Darko” director’s cut by replacing Echo & the Bunnymen’s “The Killing Moon” with an INXS song?

That was the song that we had at Sundance. It was always originally supposed to begin with INXS, and the Echo & the Bunnymen is my favorite song of the movie. It got moved to the end of the party, and [Donnie's] coming down the stairs in that big emotional moment. I was trying to utilize Echo & the Bunnymen there to give it more punch. Some people prefer it at the beginning. There’s always the theatrical cut. Some people give me shit for it, but there are other people who saw the movie at Sundance for the first time, and they’re like, “Oh my god, that INXS song at the beginning is so great!” Sometimes it’s what you see first that you hold onto. [laughs]

“The Box” will open wide on November 6th.

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