In unfortunate sequel news, newbie director Chris Fisher (Rampage: The Hillside Strangler Murders, Nightstalker) has taken on the S. Darko project, the follow-up to Richard Kelly’s cult classic Donnie Darko. Production began today in Los Angeles.

Fox has, for unclear reasons, picked up this sequel, which focuses primarily on Samantha Darko’s road trip to Los Angeles with her friend. Along the way, they are haunted by mysterious visions marked by meteorites and rabbits. Samantha is, of course, the younger sister of Donnie’s (the irksome dancer in Sparkle Motion) and will be 18 years old in the film, apparently now a troubled teen in a broken home.

Daveigh Chase is so far the only original cast member reprising her role as Samantha. Newcomer Briana Evigan (Step Up 2: The Streets), Gossip Girl‘s Ed Westwick, and Dragonball Z star Justin Chatwin have also signed on for this awful production.

Apparently the film’s sales group, Velvet Octopus, is expecting the film to become a box office favorite once it hits theaters in 2009. If anyone truly appreciates Richard Kelly’s masterpiece, they will opt not to see this flagrant movie next year.

With the fact that none of the original cast members are returning, Richard Kelly and his production team from the first movie have voiced that they will not partake in any involvement of this project.  And given that the film is titled S. Darko (not even Samantha Darko?!), can anyone really expect this film to be as good as its precursor?

Donnie Darko is a film that should not be touched; clearly no one in the family aside from Donnie showed any signs of sharing his visions and troubles. The film, storyline, and world contained in that movie centered on Donnie alone; now that Samantha has visions, is it simply a genetic chemical imbalance? I would prefer it not be such.

On top of the characters, how can anyone trust a world like Kelly’s to be handled by such a director like Chris Fisher, honestly? Fox has really hit a new low.

Again, I simply cannot stress how bad this will actually be: please don’t support this outrage!