Richard Kelly will direct THE BOX, based on a short story by author Richard Matheson set in 1976.

“It’s a six-page short story written by Richard Matheson. With a six-page short story, it’s just a wonderful premise that … I’m taking and I’m expanding upon. And the film takes place in 1976, which is very near the time in which the original short story was written, so it is a period piece,” Kelly told Sci-Fi Wire.

Why the 1970s?

“It has to do with the concept of the film working in a more innocent, less technology-dependent world. And the concept, I feel, does not work as well in the world of [the] Internet, BlackBerrys and constant hand-held communication and technology.”

The movie stars Cameron Fucking Diaz and Frank Langella in a story about a couple who receive a mysterious box that will grant them a million dollars, but with a catch:

“The catch is, somewhere, someone in the world they do not know will die,” Kelly said.

Kelly is currently in preproduction and casting other roles.

“Sets are being built,” he said. “We start shooting in Boston on Nov. 17. … Right now, the only cast that’s been announced is Cameron Diaz and Frank Langella. But there will be some other announcements very shortly.”

Just today, The Hollywood Reporter announced that James Marsden had joined the cast. Whoopie. So is Diaz married to the old dude in the film? Or is she playing the wife of hottie Marsden? I wonder what is up with the casting.

Kelly said that he’s had his eye on the story for years.

“It’s a very primal piece of mythology,” he said. “And Matheson, I’ve been obsessed with the story for years, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to expand it into a film.”

I love me some Kelly, but the strangest news of this movie is that Kelly sold the movie to Sony Pictures Entertainment at the Cannes Film Festival at the same time that SOUTHLAND TALES received a disastrous welcoming. (SOUTHLAND has been recut, with visual-effects added to help explain the complex narrative.)

“It was funny. I was at the Cannes Film Festival, on a yacht, and we finally sold the movie [The Box] to Sony,” Kelly recalled. “And it was our first piece of good news at the festival [laughs], and we’re like, ‘Hallelujah! A huge movie studio bought our movie!’”

Kelly added a storyline to expand the slim short story.

“I figured it out,” he said. “I figured out how to solve it, after four years of trying to crack it, and I went home after Cannes, as we were editing, and started writing the script. I’ve been rewriting it ever since. And I just finished the last rewrite the day before the maybe writers’ strike, and we start shooting in about three weeks.”

SOUTHLAND TALES opens in limited release on Nov. 14.

Molly Celaschi