In the early 2000s, every moody teenager prided themself in being able to explain the plot of “Donnie Darko,” Richard Kelly‘s metaphysical film starring Jake Gyllenhaal about a kid who befriends a mysterious figure who tells him he has 28 days to save the world. Now, in a new oral history of the film, Kelly reveals that the notoriously confusing timeline in “Donnie Darko” was made clearer with the help of a certain Christopher Edward Nolan.
That’s right, mister confusing-timelines himself! You can and should read the entire oral history of the film over at The Ringer, but the big piece of news comes from Kelly himself, who revealed that “Chris and his wife, it was their idea to put the parenthetical beneath the title cards.”
“Donnie Darko” premiered on January 19, 2001 at the Sundance Film Festival, which was the same year “Memento” was finishing a highly acclaimed festival run that started the previous year. But where Nolan’s film had no trouble finding distribution following its premiere at Venice, and was on its way to gather Oscar buzz, “Donnie Darko” still hadn’t found distribution four months after Sundance. Then, during a private screener at Newmarket Films, who were distributing “Memento,” Christopher Nolan and his wife, Emma Thomas suggested that Newmarket also distribute Kelly’s film.
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“When the lights came up, Chris and his wife both turned to the Newmarket executives, Chris Ball and Will Tyrer, and they both looked over at them and they nodded,” Kelly said. “They were like, ‘You guys should distribute this.'” Later, Nolan and Thomas came up with the idea of using title cards with a count down of how many days there are left until the incoming disaster, which helps ease the audience into the moody story.
