He won a scholarship to the University of Southern California to study at the USC School of Cinema-Television where he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity.

It later made #2 on Empire magazine's list of the 50 greatest independent films of all time, behind Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs.

That was Tony Scott's very personal project that he had spent eight years developing with Domino Harvey, a close friend of his and almost like a daughter to him.

"[5] Kelly has written numerous scripts that have not been produced, among them adaptations of Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle[6] and Louis Sachar's Holes.

[7] His fourth film and second feature, Southland Tales, a rough cut of which screened in competition at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival,[8] was released November 16, 2007, and stars Dwayne Johnson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seann William Scott, Kevin Smith and Miranda Richardson.

In 2008, Kelly's production company Darko Entertainment announced that it was producing the adaptation of the bestselling book I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell with director Bob Gosse.

Kelly said he would instead focus on a true crime thriller titled Amicus, starring James Gandolfini, whose death in 2013 prevented that.

But Nolan wound up in the Warner Bros. system where he got special handling, and he got a lot of money to make huge art films like Inception.