The Box delayed

Richard "Donnie Darko" Kelly's new film The Box has been delayed from March '09 to November '09. That's a long wait, and since it's a genre film I doubt it's to make it accountable for Oscar considerations.

First pic. Not exactly riveting, but could be great.

Coming after the big-time flop Southland Tales, this is not comforting. We all loved Donnie, but Southland was a pretentious mess, and made me ponder over my own filmmaking. Richard went out with his B-grade cast and millions of dollars and made what is essentially an avant-garde experimental film that makes little sense unless you have also read some accompanying graphic novels (I have not). Now, there are a few things of relevance here:

- These graphic novels would need to be separately purchased at amazon.com. If they were provided as a freebie with the movie ticket or DVD that would be a different story.

- Richard Kelly is playing with MILLIONS of dollars here. His vision required that amount of cash, but if he doesn't provide an opening for a [generally willing and keen] audience, how do you justify that kind if cash? It is an undeniable truth that large budget films are made for an audeince, and not only for the director and his legion of loyal fans.

- Southland was actually quite an enjoyable frollic. It made no sense, but it was fun. I just wish there was something more profound I could have taken from it.

The actual film is even more bewildering.

Coming back to The Box, the Cameron Diaz-starrer was commonly seen as Kelly's sellout after the washout of Southland Tales, and I was actually happy with this. He needs a hit, we need a comprehensible film. We all win.

So why the wait? I guess we won't really know until next November...