Cameron Diaz And James Marsden's Sci-Fi Movie Was Originally Adapted For The Twilight Zone
If there's one thing I could associate the closest with writer-director Richard Kelly's career, it's that he knew how to package enigmatic stories in an appealing way — even if they didn't necessarily have the merit to deliver on their premises. Still, it's what made "Donnie Darko" such a phenomenon that it turned into a cult classic over the years. His follow-up to that, "Southland Tales," was an absolute dumpster fire and box office bomb five years later, and his final directorial effort thus far, 2009's "The Box," didn't fare much better either.
Granted, the Cameron Diaz and James Marsden-led sci-fi mystery wasn't a Kelly original but an adaptation of Richard Matheson's short story, "Button, Button," which was originally used in the first revival of "The Twilight Zone" in 1986 (in Season 1's 20th episode, "Profile in Silver/Button, Button.") Initially, Matheson's story was published in Playboy in 1970 before it was adapted on the small screen (which the author admittedly hated) and then on the big screen several decades later.
"Button, Button's" high-concept premise was dead simple but intriguing: Would a regular person press a button if promised a large amount of money in exchange, knowing that (as a consequence) a stranger would die somewhere? In the original short story, the amount is $50,000, which was changed in "The Twilight Zone" episode to $200,000, and then to $1 million in the movie version.
The Box was a critical and commercial failure
While "The Twilight Zone" version of the short story was among the top-rated episodes of the anthology series' debut season, the second adaptation was a sour disappointment. Despite Kelly being behind the wheel as writer and director, decent production values ($30 million), and a prestigious cast including Frank Langella, James Rebhorn, Holmes Osborne, and Gillian Jacobs alongside Diaz and Marsden, "The Box's" landing was far from smooth.
Although not a total crash-and-burn as far as commercial performance goes, the 2009 film barely made its budget back at the box office, garnering only $33 million worldwide at the end of its run (considerably better than Kelly's disastrous "Southland Tales," which Roger Ebert loathed with every fiber of his being, only making $374 thousand against its $17 million budget).
On the other hand, most critics and the majority of viewers hated "The Box" (I was one of them), since it was filled with nonsensical plot points and unmemorable, paper-thin characters (save for Langella's disfigured Mr. Steward) that slowly ruined anything mildly fascinating about the original premise. Then again, given Richard Kelly's track record as a director and screenwriter, that's not all that surprising. Looking back on his brief filmmaking career, it's become quite clear that "Donnie Darko" was more than likely a fluke after all.