At the premiere for The Box we stole a few minutes with director Richard Kelly and finally got to the bottom of a lot of questions that have been plaguing us for years, like his constant use of water imagery, what it's like coming back after Southland Tales and what he really thinks about the Darko sequel made without him.

Why are you drawn to science fiction?

I think that science fiction is something that can capture the imagination of any human being, in the way that it lets us speculate and analyze the mysteries of the world. We live in a world that's filled with a lot of mystery. Fundamentally it gets to the heart of why we pay fourteen bucks to sit in a movie theater for two hours with a bunch of strangers. It's to discover new mysteries. And you know, with something like Avatar coming out, it sort of helps me reclaim the childhood sense of discovery I got from Jim Cameron when I saw Alien or when I saw Terminator for the first time, seeing the trailer for that film brings back all of those memories and makes me realize why I got into this business so… I think science fiction is where some of the most exciting stories are told.

Cameron Diaz and James Marsden are seen getting water dumped all over them in this movie, you've used water before as a supernatural element, can you tell us what that's all about?

Well I think sometimes the concept of saltwater coming from the ocean and the ocean being the driving force of the planet and our bodies being made of saltwater almost entirely… there's something fascinating about embracing that, the essence of it as a higher intelligence, a higher technology of some sort and it allows you to portray a higher intelligence in a visual way that provokes a lot of discussion and interpretation for audiences. So that's sort of been the reason behind my thought process. People may not understand that when they first see it but it plants a seed in your mind. It's something that we actually did with Donnie Darko and a little bit in Southland Tales so hopefully people are kind of connecting the dots.

What was it like directing this movie after doing Southland Tales?

It was a pleasure for me to have a simple concept to embrace, where I could still design an elaborate mystery behind it all and to try to design an elababorate roller coaster ride. And also to work with intimate characters and… really it's a three-character melodrama, it's the husband and the wife and the stranger who knocks on their door. And there's something wonderful about that simplicity and also being able to work within the studio system… is such a relief for me. To know that my film is going to get released and here we are, red carpet, and there's people here! So I'm very grateful for that.

One last question, have you seen S. Darko [the sequel to Donnie Darko]?

I have not seen it.

Are you planning to?

No. I kind of... it's not… I didn't have anything to do with it and I just.. kind of want the movie to exist in my heart the way I made it and I just I won't… I don't have any plans to see it.

The Box is theaters November 6th.

S. Darko is directed by Chris Fisher, whose main claim to fame is directing one episode of Chuck. It's nowhere near as spooky and cool as the first film, and in many ways is a bad retelling of Donnie Darko except with a female protagonist on a road trip whose evil bunny (yes the evil bunny comes back) is a Gulf War veteran. She's also menaced by some churchy types, and there are a few clumsy efforts to show us that Christianity is bad - or maybe just a few Christians are bad, or maybe they're just weird.

Hard to say, when the plot is mostly focused on showing us Samantha looking hot in teeny shorts or dresses. There's time travel, of course, and those blobby Abyss-looking things pop out of people's chests just like in the first movie. But it all feels very rote until this scene, which you can see here, when the world starts to end and Samantha happens to be on a really awful date. There's a fun originality to this scene, where her date's flailing efforts at making out are nearly as scary (if not scarier) than the "tesseract" and a mysterious bombardment from space.

If you loved the original Darko flick, I hesitate to recommend this sequel. Check it out for completism, but don't expect it to take you to strange new places the way the first movie did.

S. Darko via IMDB

In all fairness, it does seem like the main character is the original actress, Daveigh Chase, who played the sparkle-motion sis to Donnie (and, also a little sidenotey, was that creepy girl that crawled out of the well in The Ring), while the other two CW actors just act smarmy and "homeless crazy" around her.

S. Darko will be released onto DVD April 28th and follows the little sis and her friend Bebop Brownhair or something (I'm not bothering to look it up) on their merry way to the big city to get "discovered." On their scantily-clad road trip the two encounter visions, Ed Westwick's crotch on a bike, and space meteor problems, which detour said journey. Oh and one of them dresses up like a mermaid and another mis-uses the wormhole FX.

Ever since they canceled the panel at NYCC, we've been hellbent on getting to the bottom of this strange DVD release. S. Darko (starring Jackson Rathbone, Ed Westwick Briana Evingan and the original little sister form Daveigh Chase from Donnie) looks like it takes place in the middle of the desert. Perhaps some cigarette-in-sleeve-rolling bad boy wrecks a pretty red car into some sort of bone covered wagon (What the hell are those things all over the car anyways)? Anyway, the main story follows Samantha Darko and her bestie Corey on the road to LA to "make it big" but on the way a meteorite crashes down and the two start to have terrible visions.

S. Darko will be released onto DVD April 28th.

[Briana Evigan Online, Jackson Rathbone Online and Ed Westwick]

The new art shows more of the all-growed-up Samantha Darko, who wants to "make it big" in Hollywood, or somewhere. Sam and her bestie head out of town, following their inner souls, until a meteorite and the Darko issues start to plague little miss S. We'll be bringing you all the deets from the movie's NYCC panel.

The direct-to-DVD sequel, now called S. Darko will be coming out on April 28th from MGM's home entertainment.

The summary, according to the IMDB page is as follows:

S. Darko takes place in the summer of 1995, seven years after the original film. It follows Donnie Darko's younger sister, Samantha (Daveigh Chase), who, in the wake of his death, has found herself at age 17 with a broken family, mired in feelings of insignificance. She and her best friend Corey (Evigan) set off on a road trip to Hollywood in a bid to 'make it big', but their journey is cut short when their car breaks down unexpectedly, leaving them stranded in a small desert town. When a meteorite happens to crash-land nearby, Samantha is plagued by bizarre visions telling of the universe's end and it appears that their breakdown was part of some grander plan. When she finds out she was actually adopted by the Darkos, and that she is in no way related to Donnie, she must face her own demons and, in doing so, save the world and herself.

Bloody Disgusting has the first still from the DVD and shows a disheveled mer-teen all angsted out, from what I can only assume are an overdose of visions and time warps. Click on the picture for a better look.

The trailer will be premiering at this years New York Comic Con and we'll be there front and center to tell you if it heralds the return of Frank. But for now, amuse your self with the teaser.