Newmarket Films, the movie’s US distributor, approached Richard Kelly about doing a special director’s cut. He accepted the offer and did the re-edit with editor ‘Sam Bauer’ in only nine days.
The movie had a very rough time finding a US distributor. Since the film embodied several different genres and tones, distributors were extremely confused by the movie’s message, and didn’t really know how to market it. Kelly also claims that Donnie Darko was very close to premiering on the Starz network, but Newmarket Films picked up the movie for theatrical distribution.
Despite rumors, Richard Kelly insists that none of the characters in this film are actually based upon USC students or their teachers.
The movie was shot in 28 days, which is ironic because this is exactly the time span of the movie itself. It was filmed on a budget of under US$5 million dollars.
