10 Times Film-Makers Ruined Their Own Damn Movies
2. Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko Director's Cut
Though it performed poorly at the box
office first time round, writer-director Richard Kelly’s feature debut Donnie
Darko gained a new lease of life thanks to DVD sales, midnight screenings and
success in the overseas market and earned itself a cult following.
Conversely, it was this very success that led Donnie Darko’s distributor Newmarket Films to approach Kelly and request he rerelease the movie, which in turn led to his diabolical director’s cut. We really wish they hadn’t bothered.
Peppered with superfluous scenes deleted from the theatrical cut and cut with over-explanatory text detailing Kelly’s take on time travel that basically handholds its audience throughout the movie, Donnie Darko geeks weren’t too pleased with the director’s cut and felt it stripped much the original cut’s mystique and ambiguity.
Perhaps one of the director’s cut’s biggest sins was his messing with its practically perfect soundtrack, especially the substituting of Echo & the Bunnymen’s The Killing Moon with INXS’s Never Tear Us Apart during Donnie Darko’s opening scenes which kind of messed with its doom-laden feel.
Donnie Darko: The Director’s Cut may be the film Kelly originally intended us to see, but it definitely isn’t the superior version.