This is the trailer for The Box, from Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly, who hopes to rebound from the commercial failure of Southland Tales.  It stars James Marsden, Frank Langella, and Cameron Diaz, who may have given away a big plot secret at Comic Con (go ahead, I know you’re thinking it, “Cameron Diaz reveals the mysteries of her box all too easily.”).  Suffice to say, the plot involves a stranger, Langella (ella ella, eh eh eh…), showing up to struggling couple Diaz and Marsden’s house with a box and a proposition: press the button on the box and get a million dollars cash, but someone somewhere in the world who you don’t know will die.

I realize I’m not the best audience for this “dilemma”, especially not today when I’ve spent at least three hours alternately getting screwed by NYC public transportation, searching for a wireless connection, and getting caught in a downpour with my laptop.  A million dollars for killing a stranger?  Pff, I’d kick a baby into traffic on the off chance it’d make me feel better.  Just give me a reason, junior.

This is the first trailer for Donnie Darko/Southland Tales director Richard Kelly’s The Box.  It’s based on a Richard Matheson short story called “Button, Button,” which was also made into a Twilight Zone episode.  The premise is that a mysterious stranger (Frank Langella) gives a couple (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden) a box with a button.  He tells them if they press the button, they get a million dollars, but someone they don’t know will die.  I guess back in the 70s this was considered a moral dilemma.  If it happened today, my only question would be, “So if I press it twice, do I get two million dollars?”

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Veteran creepy dude Frank Langella has signed on for The Box, with Cameron Diaz and (director) Richard Kelly, in yet another movie that could be its own porn remake. 

Provided his Donnie Darko follow up Southland Tales  (starring The Rock, Stifler, Mandy Moore, Justin Timberlake, Bai Ling, Vizzini from The Princess Bride, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Janeane Garofalo, Kevin Smith, John Larroquette and others) doesn’t somehow forever alter the space-time continuum as we know it, Richard Kelly’s The Box will feature Langella as a stranger who presents a mysterious box to a woman. When presented with mysterious box, I usually just yell "zoinks!" and hit it with a shovel.  Chicks love that.

The Box is "based on an old Richard Matheson story called Button, Button. (The basic premise is this: You’re given a magical box and if you press the button, you become rich — but a total stranger will die.)"  Just before all the possible vagina jokes short-circuited my brain, I wondered what the fuck kind of box has buttons on it.   Most of my boxes are made of cardboard.  Did they let Diaz name this box?  I mean, are we sure it’s actually a box and not, like, a shirt, or a television remote? Because she’s really bad with household objects.  One time I asked her to pass the salt and she handed me a tube of shaving cream. Who even has that at the dinner table?