Because two weren’t enough — Richard Kelly is eyeing a third Donnie Darko cut

Right, fire up your time-twisting conspiracy charts because Donnie Darko is back in the cultural crosshairs. It’s somehow been 25 years since Jake Gyllenhaal first locked eyes with that massive, haunted rabbit—still no definitive answer on that one, by the way. Now, writer-director Richard Kelly, never a man afraid of complicated explanations, has piped up to say he still isn’t happy with either of the existing cuts of his cult classic. He’s got his sights set on a new, third version, and if you thought the “Director’s Cut” controversy was finally chilling out, think again.

A Third Cut on the Horizon?

To catch everyone up: Donnie Darko landed in 2001, promptly tanked at the US box office, and then snowballed into a phenomenon through word of mouth, late-night screenings, and teenagers getting existential with their mates. Kelly followed up in 2004 with his Director’s Cut, which threw in about 20 extra minutes, more effects, and copious lore dumps from the in-movie book ‘The Philosophy of Time Travel’—handy for some, sacrilege for others.

Donnie Darko was released in cinemas in 2001 and then got a Director’s Cut in 2004 with extra scenes and more explicit explanations.

But even after tinkering for decades, Kelly’s apparently still not content. During a recent Reddit AMA, he admitted that neither the original nor his extended remix quite nails it. Interestingly, he says a new cut—if it ever happens—would swing back towards the sparser theatrical version, rather than doubling down on all the explanations and deleted scenes that flooded the 2004 cut. That’s as close to an apology as you’re likely to get from a director who once made a film where a jet engine falls out of the sky just because, isn’t it?

Soundtrack Shenanigans and Sequel Ambitions

One of the most notorious changes in the Director’s Cut was shuffling the soundtrack: Echo & the Bunnymen’s ‘The Killing Moon’ got booted from the opening scene in favour of INXS’s ‘Never Tear Us Apart.’ Fans moaned, and Kelly’s heard them. He’s now said that, for this hypothetical third cut, he’d use ‘The Killing Moon’ both at the start and again during the party sequence (which, to be fair, would probably end at least one decade-long internet argument).

This tinkering isn’t just about nitpicking the original—it’s apparently all paving the way for a much grander expansion. Kelly’s poured years into an 800-page sequel novel called—you guessed it—The Philosophy of Time Travel. The book picks up after Donnie’s death, set in 1988, with the plot webbed around his parents as they hunt for the truth behind their son’s fate. It’s told in a kind of found-document style, so expect lots of piecing things together. If you’re still trying to work out what actually happened in the first film, this will almost certainly make it murkier and more involved. The novel’s supposed to drop in late 2026, lining up with the film’s 25th birthday.

The new sequel novel is set for release in the last quarter of 2026, aiming to coincide with Donnie Darko’s 25th anniversary.

But wait, there's more. Kelly’s already thinking across multiple mediums—not just a book and a recut but possibly animation and, if everyone’s keen, bringing original cast members back for a massive time-jump live-action continuation. Here’s how he explained the scope of what he’s plotting, in a surprisingly candid chat with Variety:

“I’ve kept in touch with all the cast over the years. I’m fairly certain they’re aware that I’ve been working on all this stuff, everything, and the sequel is so big that this book starts off in the 14 months after Donnie’s death, and then there is much more narrative material that I’ve been developing where the time jumps 28 years into the future, and there’s a lot of really exciting stuff that happens starting around 2015/2016 and onward after that, so that’s where I started with the sequel. This section of the sequel would be animation and then, in theory, should it happen, there would be a gigantic time jump of 28 years or so, and where the actors, should they want to play their roles live and in the flesh, that would be wonderful, too. So we’ll see what happens.”

A Quick Recap: The Film Itself

For anyone who needs a refresher (or hasn’t had a sixth rewatch lately): set during the 1988 US election, the story follows moody teenager Donnie Darko who starts receiving apocalyptic messages from a bloke in a giant rabbit suit. When a jet engine randomly smashes into his bedroom, Donnie’s forced to question reality, his own sanity, and the whole possible-time-paradox nature of existence. Take what you will from that.

• Jake Gyllenhaal as Donnie; Jena Malone, Maggie Gyllenhaal, James Duval, Drew Barrymore, Mary McDonnell, Katharine Ross, Patrick Swayze, Noah Wyle, Holmes Osborne, Daveigh Chase, Jolene Purdy, Seth Rogen, Beth Grant fill out the cast.

So, as of now, those pining for a proper third round of Donnie Darko—either on the screen or the page—will have to wait and see what Kelly delivers first. Whether he ever manages to lock the definitive version down is still anyone's guess.