* Photo: Amy Crilly * If there were an Oscar for Best WTF?!, director Richard Kelly — the 32-year-old mastermind behind 2001's twisted cult hit Donnie Darko — would be a shoo-in. His follow-up, Southland Tales, is a futuristic fever dream about nuclear terrorism that features Sarah Michelle Gellar as a porn star, Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson as an amnesiac action hero, and Justin Timberlake as a war vet — who lip-syncs to the Killers. Kelly gives Wired the saga behind Tales.
Wired: The making of Tales has been long and public. It bombed at Cannes in 2006. Then Sony picked it up — on the condition you went back into the editing room. Did you resent that?
Kelly: No. Let's face it — this isn't the easiest movie in the world to market. The downside of working with a studio is that it takes a long time to get things done. It was taking so long, people were getting worried. I put up a MySpace page so I could talk directly to fans and let them know things were on track. People assumed the worst, like I couldn't pull it all together. But in the end, it's just ambitious. It's like a Rubik's Cube, and now the whole puzzle is finally put together.
Wired: What major changes have you made to the film since the screening at Cannes?
Kelly: I cut about 20 minutes off of its 163-minute running time. And we added about 100 visual effects shots and an animated opener that ties things together. I also had Justin rerecord his narration to be more like Martin Sheen's in Apocalypse Now. I had him do it really deadpan.
Wired: You took Southland Tales to Comic-Con three times — but only this last year with a release date. That's vindication.
Kelly: Man, was I glad to have a poster with me this time. I told the studio I couldn't face Comic-Con again without an actual release date. I didn't want to be the boy who cried wolf. I couldn't stand feeling like people secretly thought that my movie was never going to come out, and yet I kept showing up, year after year, to promote it anyway.
Wired: Donnie Darko developed a cult following thanks to DVD — and its director's cut. Are you planning to do a director's cut for Tales?
Kelly: I'm 100 percent behind the version that will end up in theaters, but I'll assemble a longer one for DVD. The great thing about DVD is that if the studio makes you cut 25minutes for theatrical release, you can go right back and do another version that's a little truer to your vision.
Wired: You also penned a bunch of comic books that give backstory on the film...
Kelly: Kevin Smith helped publish them. There's going to be a bound collection — like a graphic novel — available in bookstores soon.
Wired: So, what's next? Another Rubik's Cube?
Kelly: It's a PG-13 movie called The Box. No vulgarity, no porn stars, and no nuclear bombs. It's something that will make the studios say, yeah, we can sell that.
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