Richard Kelly's sequel novel to Donnie Darko, titled The Philosophy of Time Travel, will be released this fall.

      We were thrilled, and honestly relieved, to discover that Richard Kelly is releasing a new project this year, and even more surprised that it is a novel—a “gigantic” one, as he describes it. Today brings more comprehensive information, including a fulfillment of his long-anticipated Donnie Darko sequel. Titled The Philosophy of Time Travel, this 800-plus-page tome has been in the works for over ten years, with its conceptualization spanning nearly 20 years. According to Variety, it is an epistolary novel “narrated by” Donnie's parents as they “thoroughly document their experiences, their son’s death, their paranoia, and their individual detective efforts to understand what happened and why.” The book is available for pre-order ahead of its fall release, which aligns with the 25th anniversary of the film.

      Kelly has often expressed his desire to create a feature-film sequel to Donnie Darko, and The Philosophy of Time Travel appears to support this goal. The novel arose from the need to preempt a live-action film project that was becoming unwieldy and will provide the foundation for “an animated/motion-capture movie followed by a live-action project set 28 years in the future” that will encompass “much more narrative content.” (For those who are counting, 28 years post-1988 is indeed 2016—another election year for a Richard Kelly film.) This extensive work will serve as a pitch to the cast of the original movie, while also being a satisfying experience for Donnie Darko fans, especially with Kelly's return timed perfectly.

      Read Kelly’s extensive statement about the book and an official synopsis below, along with the cover:

      “I believe there will be many surprises when you discover the true nature of the characters in the reality of Southern California, and how they became part of this collective dream. They were pulled into what is known as the tangent universe, a lunar month, a dream that lasted 28 days that they all experienced together, and they’re trying to piece it all together. They form a sort of support group that, in a sense, evolves into a cult, coming together in a unique way. There are many surprises regarding their identities, and for me, it was incredibly rewarding to see all the characters interact in response to Donnie’s death, leading them to become close friends. Some characters who appeared villainous in the film are revealed to be quite different in reality; they may have committed terrible acts in the framework of the original movie's dream, but when encountering them in the sequel’s reality, they are grappling with their actions and reflecting on them similarly to how fans analyze the film. My intention was to create deeply fulfilling roles for all the actors, including those who may only have brief appearances. You will find that they have well-developed narrative arcs and more.”

      The official sequel to the cult classic film DONNIE DARKO – the question fans have been asking for over two decades is finally addressed.

      On October 4, 1988, a derelict jet engine crashes down onto the bedroom of sixteen-year-old Donnie Darko in Los Cerritos, California, killing him instantly. For his family, the tragedy should conclude there. However, it doesn’t.

      Composed entirely of recovered governmental transcripts, covertly recorded conversations, and early email exchanges, The Philosophy of Time Travel reconstructs the eighteen months that follow through the perspective of Donnie’s mother, Rose Darko, as she and her husband Eddie, a senior CIA analyst, become entangled in an expanding investigation stretching from the Oval Office to the Mojave Desert. FBI surveillance teams, FAA officials, USC professors, and a mysterious group of trackers and financiers all converge on an incredible revelation: a peculiar “celestial fluid,” a collection of unexplained artifacts, and a forbidden book, Roberta Sparrow’s own Philosophy of Time Travel, which seems to foretell the very circumstances of its own recovery.

      Set against the authentic backdrop of the late Reagan era, the novel broadens the mythology of the original film; Tangent Universes, Living Receivers, the Manipulated, into an ongoing conspiracy that probes whether Donnie’s death was truly accidental and whether “gone” equates to “gone for good.”

      Written by Richard Kelly, creator of the film DONNIE DARKO, this is the authorized continuation of the story for dedicated fans and new readers alike.