{"id":368492,"date":"2026-04-01T00:59:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T00:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/368492\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T00:59:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T00:59:10","slug":"movie-bombing-was-very-sad-for-richard-kelly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/368492\/","title":{"rendered":"Movie Bombing Was “Very Sad” for Richard Kelly"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSouthland Tales<\/a>, which has long maintained a cult following, is getting a fond tribute as it nears its 20th anniversary.<\/p>\n

\n\tLou Taylor Pucci, who has a role in the film, offered his thoughts about the movie during a recent Reddit AMA<\/a>. Southland Tales marked the second movie for director Richard Kelly<\/a> \u2014 known for feature directorial debut Donnie Darko<\/a> \u2014 while the ensemble cast included Dwayne Johnson<\/a>, Seann William Scott<\/a>, Sarah Michelle Gellar<\/a>, Mandy Moore and Justin Timberlake. <\/p>\n

\n\tPucci noted that Kelly is a \u201cgenius in his own way\u201d but that the director seemed to expect it to make a bigger splash at the box office. \u201cI thought Richard knew when he was making it that he was making a B-sci-fi cult classic, but it seems he and his producers didn\u2019t think it\u2019d bomb in the box office,\u201d Pucci said. \u201cThey put a lot of [money] into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe actor added, \u201cSo for them, it was very sad when it wasn\u2019t well-received. But I think Richard\u2019s view of a fascist America was quite prescient and worth a new viewing, if you all have time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile responding to a different question about the film, Pucci explained that the script had evolved significantly from the initial version that he received.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tDwayne Johnson in Southland Tales.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Everett Collection<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe first script I got didn\u2019t have time travel \u2014 or two Sean William Scotts,\u201d said Pucci, who is known for features like Evil Dead and for such series as Physical and Daredevil: Born Again. \u201cThe third one did. Nobody knew what was going on, but they all trusted Richard because of his success with Donnie Darko. They got The Rock and Sara Michelle Gellar in that movie, and literally all of us, because of [Donnie Darko].\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSouthland Tales premiered at Cannes<\/a> in 2006 before hitting theaters the following year. The dystopian feature is set in Los Angeles and centers on an action film star (Johnson) connecting with an adult actress (Gellar) amid the threat of nuclear attack. After getting booed at Cannes, it collected a mere $375,000 at the global box office.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor a piece timed to the film\u2019s 10th anniversary, Kelly talked to The Hollywood Reporter<\/a> about the divisive critical response. Southland Tales marked the director\u2019s follow-up to Donnie Darko, the 2001 thriller that helped establish Jake Gyllenhaal\u2019s career and made Kelly an in-demand filmmaker. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSouthland Tales was a really aggressive, provocative film, even for Cannes,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cI think a lot of people were just never going to accept the film for what it was.\u201d The only feature that Kelly has since directed was 2009\u2019s The Box, starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor her part, Gellar told THR<\/a> in 2023 about Southland Tales, \u201cThat movie was just batshit ambitious.\u201d She also pointed out that she \u201cfell asleep twice\u201d during its Cannes premiere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Southland Tales, which has long maintained a cult following, is getting a fond tribute as it nears its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[27993,458,177455,6773,146,85,46,177456,23203,134352],"class_list":{"0":"post-368492","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-cannes","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-donnie-darko","11":"tag-dwayne-johnson","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-il","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-richard-kelly","16":"tag-sarah-michelle-gellar","17":"tag-seann-william-scott"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}