The twisted psychological thriller Donnie Darko recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, and now director Richard Kelly has revealed plans for a follow-up. While he remains vague about the details regarding Donnie Darko 3, Kelly is clearly determined to return to the franchise that made him famous all those years ago.

"Well, I'm probably not allowed to say anything more than there has been an enormous amount of work completed. I'm hopeful that we might get to explore that world in a very big and exciting way. But we'll see what happens. But there has been a lot of work done. A lot of work has been done."

In the simplest terms possible, Donnie Darko follows the titular Donnie, an awkward teenager, who is awoken in the middle night to meet Frank, a figure in a bunny costume only he can see. Frank then informs Donnie that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds, and only he has the power to stop it. Released in 2001, Donnie Darko stars Jake Gyllenhaal (Spider-Man: Far From Home) in the lead role alongside Jena Malone (Antebellum), Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Dark Knight), Patrick Swayze (Point Break), Mary McDonnell (Fargo), Drew Barrymore (Santa Clarita Diet), Katharine Ross (The Stepford Wives), Noah Wyle (Falling Skies) and James Duval (Independence Day).

The movie grossed just over $7.5 million worldwide on a budget of $4.5 million and became an instant cult classic, hitting a cultural nerve thanks to its unusual premise, its intimate exploration of a tortured outsider and a plot that is difficult to grasp and open to all sorts of interpretations. Donnie Darko rocketed director Richard Kelly to heights that he has sadly failed to reach since.

Though Kelly does not indicate how a new project would connect to the events of the first movie, it's worth noting that a sequel was already made back in 2009. Titled S. Darko, the story picks up seven years afterward the events of Donnie Darko and centers on the now 18-year-old Sam, Donnie's younger sister. Sam is troubled by her brother's death and begins to have problems with sleepwalking, along with strange dreams that hint at an impending major catastrophe. The sequel received extremely negative reviews and featured zero involvement from Kelly, with the director resenting the existence of the grossly sub-par sequel.

It is also worth noting that this is not the first time that Kelly has discussed returning to the twisted world of Donnie Darko. "I think there's something much bigger and more ambitious to do in that universe," Kelly revealed of his plans back in 2017. "It's big and expensive and I think there's time to get to that. I want to make sure we've got the budget to do it justice and not to compromise anything. Another story in this world needs resources and we need to have that in place. I need to get my next film out of the gate and then we can go back and look at it."

So, whether Kelly will finally be able to enact his plan remains to be seen. But hopefully, should it ever come to fruition, we can all breathe a sigh of relief, because there will be so much to look forward to. This comes to us from Comingsoon.net.