Editing Donnie Darko (section)

===Writing===
The film originated in late 1997 when Kelly, aged 22, had graduated from [[USC School of Cinematic Arts]] in Los Angeles.<ref name=LAT20011026/> While earning money as a client's assistant at a post-production house, he thought about his future and decided to write his first feature-length script. The task frightened Kelly at first because he did not want to produce something that was poor in quality. It was not until October 1998 when Kelly felt the time was right to write a script and wrote ''Donnie Darko'' in 28 days, the same time period as the film.<ref name=COS17>{{cite web|url=https://consequence.net/2017/04/donnie-darko-returns-richard-kelly/|title=Donnie Darko Returns: Director Richard Kelly Talks '80s Nostalgia, Tears for Fears, and the Possibility of a Sequel|first1=Michael|last1=Roffman|first2=Cap|last2=Blackard|date=April 18, 2017|publisher=Consequence of Sound|access-date=January 30, 2021}}</ref> The time of year influenced Kelly to set the film around Halloween.<ref name=THR17/>

Kelly set out to write something "ambitious, personal, and nostalgic" about the 1980s which "pushed the envelope by combining science fiction with a coming-of-age tale".<ref name=BBC20021021>{{cite web|last=Korsner|first=Jason|title=Movies – Richard Kelly – Donnie Darko|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2002/10/21/richard_kelly_donnie_darko_interview.shtml|access-date=January 19, 2018|work=BBC News|date=October 25, 2002}}</ref><ref name=LAT20011026>{{cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-oct-26-ca-61710-story.html|title='Darko' Hard to Sell, Quick to Shoot|date=October 26, 2001|first=Gina|last=Piccalo|work=Los Angeles Times|access-date=January 29, 2021}}</ref> The ''[[New York Times]]'' homed in on the 1980s coming-of-age story aspect by observing the influence of [[John Hughes (filmmaker)|John Hughes]], noting the "ineffectual" adults and the fact that Donnie's "suffering is a way to make him more sensitive".<ref name="nyt">{{cite news |last1=Mitchell |first1=Elvis |title=Sure, He Has a 6-Foot Rabbit. Does That Mean He's Crazy? |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/26/movies/film-review-sure-he-has-a-6-foot-rabbit-does-that-mean-he-s-crazy.html |access-date=19 May 2022 |work=The New York Times |date=26 October 2001}}</ref> Kelly summarized the script was to be "an amusing and poignant recollection of suburban America in the [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]] era".<ref name=TG20161212/> He recalled a news story that he had read as a child, which he later called an urban legend,<ref name=LA18/> about a large piece of ice falling from the wing of a plane and crashing through a boy's bedroom, who was not there at the time and thus escaped death.<ref name=TG20161212>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/dec/12/how-we-made-donnie-darko-jake-gyllenhaal|title=How we made Donnie Darko|first=Phil|last=Hoad|date=December 12, 2016|work=The Guardian|access-date=February 1, 2021}}</ref> Kelly used this to develop an initial idea of a jet engine falling onto a house and no one could determine its origin. He then built the rest of the script with the aim of resolving the mystery at the end while taking a "most interesting voyage" to get there, although at this point he knew the plane was to be one that Donnie's mother was on and was from a different dimension.{{sfn|Kelly|2003|pp=xxii–xxiii}}<ref name=LAT20011026/> At one point Kelly considered replacing the jet engine with a piece of ice, like he had read.<ref name=TR21/> He based the film's concept of time travel and alternate universes from reading ''[[A Brief History of Time]]'' by [[Stephen Hawking]].<ref name=COS17/>

Kelly was adamant to set the film in 1988, thinking it would be fresh to explore the era and depict a society that he had not seen in a film before.<ref name=COS17/> Later he admitted that he felt pressured to make the setting more contemporary. However, he could not figure out how to make the story work in such a setting and retained the original setting.<ref>{{cite web | last=Cranswick | first=Ami | title=Exclusive Interview with Donnie Darko writer/director Richard Kelly | url=https://www.flickeringmyth.com/2016/12/exclusive-interview-with-donnie-darko-writerdirector-richard-kelly/ | website=Flickering Myth | date=December 16, 2016 | access-date=February 21, 2017}}</ref> The first draft had Donnie originally wake up at a shopping mall, rather than a golf course.<ref name=LA18/> Kelly got ideas for Donnie's experiences of paranoid schizophrenia from researching the topic online. He considered such a broad disorder that is difficult to define was "a great way to ground a supernatural story" in a scientific sense.<ref name=LAT20011024>{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/69080149/|title=Analyze This: What's Behind These Psychodramas?|first=Richard|last=Natale|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=October 24, 2001|page=F10|via=[[Newspapers.com]]|access-date=February 1, 2021}}</ref> The first draft was between 145–150 pages; Kelly did not change what he had initially written as he was aware that stopping to review it would have caused him to second guess himself.{{sfn|Kelly|2003|pp=xxiv}} He presented it to producer [[Sean McKittrick]], who recalled "had never read anything like this before", and helped refine the script while making the story understandable enough.<ref name=TR21/> After two more drafts were written, the pair finalized a 128-page script.{{sfn|Kelly|2003|p=xxxii}} Kelly felt that had he clarified the film's ending any further, "the film would collapse under its own pretension", and credited McKittrick, Juvonen, and Gyllenhaal, whom he said were "aggressive" and "vocal" in not letting there be one simple answer to the plot.{{sfn|Kelly|2003|pp=xxiv–xxv}}

There are some autobiographical links with Kelly and the film; he said there is "plenty of me" in Donnie's character. Kelly grew up in [[Midlothian, Virginia]], also a suburban town, where a local woman called Grandma Death would stand by the road and constantly open and close her mailbox. Kelly also incorporated the moment he almost ran over a homeless person while driving, arguments with his school teachers over the curriculum, and his personal experiences with [[sleepwalking]] into the narrative.<ref name=BFI16>{{cite web|url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/interviews/donnie-darko-director-richard-kelly-i-didnt-grow-seeing-rabbits|title=Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly: 'I didn't grow up seeing rabbits'|first=Lou|last=Thomas|date=December 14, 2016|publisher=BFI|access-date=February 1, 2021}}</ref> The word "fuck-ass", used in the Darko family dinner scene, was something that two of Kelly's film school friends used during their occasional exchange of insults.{{sfn|Kelly|2003|pp=xxiv}} Frank was to be a rabbit since the beginning, but Kelly was unsure whether the character originated from a dream or his longtime interest in the animal novel ''[[Watership Down]]'' by [[Richard Adams]].<ref name=EW17>{{cite web|title=The behind-the-scenes story of Donnie Darko's creepy bunny suit|last=Coggan|first=Devan|date=7 April 2017|url=https://ew.com/movies/2017/03/31/donnie-darko-bunny-suit-frank-untold-stories/|magazine=Entertainment Weekly|access-date=January 31, 2021}}</ref> The novel was to be taught in Karen's English class after the school had censored [[Graham Greene]] from her curriculum; it was a subplot that was abandoned in the theatrical version but included in the director's cut.<ref name=EW17/><ref>{{cite web|last1=Susman|first1=Gary|title=25 Things You May Not Know About 'Donnie Darko'|url=https://www.moviefone.com/2011/10/26/25-things-you-may-not-know-about-donnie-darko/|website=Moviefone|access-date=21 February 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171222051340/https://www.moviefone.com/2011/10/26/25-things-you-may-not-know-about-donnie-darko/ |archive-date=22 December 2017 |url-status=dead}}</ref>