As previously reported, Richard Kelly, the director behind “Donnie Darko” and “Southland Tales” has tapped indie-rock band Arcade Fire to score his latest directorial project, “The Box.” At first they were on board, then they changed their tune a little, but ultimately, yes, they composed the score.
“They’re just like my favorite band, period,” Kelly told MTV News. “And I just have always felt that their stuff was really cinematic.” After showing the “Box” script to Arcade songwriter Win Butler, the director and the band traveled to Toronto, where they recorded 80 minutes of original music with a full orchestra, including strings, brass and a rich, polyphonic keyboard called a Mellotron. Singer Régine Chassagne contributed vocal elements to the score.
“Its kind of like [‘Psycho’ composer] Bernard Hermann on acid, what they did,” Kelly cooed excitedly. “It’s very lush, and kind of a very bombastic, emotional score. And kind of Hitchcock. It feels like a score from the 1970s.”
“The Box” is a modern-day morality tale starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden as an unhappily-married couple who receive a box in the mail upon which lies a button that if pressed will give the couple $1 million dollars but will also simultaneously kill an innocent person.
The film, Kelly’s first since the disaster that was “Southland Tales,” is set to be released this fall and according to Kelly the Arcade Fire score may receive a release of its own. “I think we’re figuring out how to exactly. They kind of control everything. I put that in Win’s court because it’s his music, and I just feel really blessed that they were willing to score the film. So it’ll be out there. It’ll be a big release, I’m sure.”