Way back in July, while doing the rounds for “The Box,” Richard Kelly revealed that he had finished the script for what he hoped would be his next project, a futuristic thriller set in Manhattan in 2014. At the time, he said that the potential project would be expensive, with 40% of it would requiring motion capture technology, not unlike what Robert Zemeckis and James Cameron are currently being mocked for using.
Well, it appears that Kelly still has the project on the brain. Speaking more recently to The Guardian, he revealed that he has a “a post-9/11, set-in-Manhattan project in the pipeline.” And yes, it’s the same project. However, before Kelly fanboys start wetting their pants, the “pipeline” probably means he’s trying to get someone to give him money to finance this thing, and given the financial and critical trainwreck of his other futuristic film, “Southland Tales” and the recent, barely box office registering failure of “The Box” we don’t think too many studios are going to be lining up for this.
All that said, Kelly is not short on potential projects. Back in the summer, he mentioned he also has an “action film” in the works and he told The Guardian, “I have, like, 20 screenplays in my drawer. I’ll find something.”
Our advice to Kelly? Take a page out of Guy Ritchie’s playbook:
1) Leave your own scripts to the side for now
2) Take on a manageable, solid studio project, and knock it out of the park
3) Make some powerful studio executives a shitload of money
4) Bask in the glow of a career renaissance
5) Pull those dream scripts out of the drawer and remind the execs who it was that allowed them to buy their latest vacation house/luxury car/plastic surgery
Follow those steps and you’ll be able to get actors with blue dots in front of green screens in no time at all.
Kelly should campaign Fox for the director's chair on an X-Men 4.
He could but I don't think he would stand a snowballs chance in hell.
what did the Box gross $12.67?
I think he should start directing wedding portraits in the meantime.
Now this sounds really good!
Sometimes, if an artist isn't fully formed when they meet success, they use the gushing sound of adoration and praise as their signpost to further success. If they don't understand (or misunderstand) why people loved the initial work, this can really screw a filmmaker up and send them way off path.
I am not entirely convinced Kelly understands the moody magic of his own "Donnie Darko", and has consequently struggled in efforts to duplicate the effect. He should move on and try something entirely different. No fanboy sci-fi. No weird stories that function on the smoke and mirrors of mood. Just a small straight up potent drama with no tricks up his sleeve.
"I am not entirely convinced Kelly understands the moody magic of his own "'Donnie Darko'."
Well said. The director's cut of that film certainly suggests he does not. He robbed that thing of all its allure and mystique with TMI.