Canadian troupe Arcade Fire have been enlisted by Donnie Darko writer/director, Richard Kelly, to score his next film – The Box staring Cameron Diaz and Frost/Nixon’s Frank Langella - with 80 minutes of original music.
Kelly went backstage in 2007 to hand-deliver the script to Arcade Fire’s frontman, Win Butler.
"They're just, like, my favorite band, period," he said. "I saw the Neon Bible tour. I went to, like, four shows. And I just have always felt that their stuff was really cinematic. They're really political and I think with The Box, it's a morality tale, and it takes place in 1976, but conceptually, there's a real message to the film in terms of what it has to say about the nuclear family, and about greed, or about what everyone is willing to do to achieve a certain level of happiness in their life."
Kelly adapted the script from a '70s-era short story by Twilight Zone writer Richard Matheson. The film follows Diaz as one half of a miserable suburban couple (James Marsden is the other half) who are approached by a mysterious stranger (Langella) with a proposition… press the button on this box and you'll receive $1 million, but someone on the planet will die as a consequence.
“The band's focus was on a Russian style of composition," explains Kelly. "The strings being really raw and emotional. I think they were able to create a score that feels like it's from another era. It's kind of like [Psycho composer] Bernard Hermann on acid, what they did. It's very lush, and kind of a very bombastic, emotional score. And kind of Hitchcock. It feels like a score from the 1970s. I just feel really blessed that they were willing to score the film. I'm really excited for people to hear what they've come up with.”
The Box is set for theatrical release towards the end of this year.
If you've been living under a stone for the last few years and you haven't had the glorious pleasure of Arcade Fire's two majestic masterpieces in your ears, we implore you to rectify this immediately.
Buy Funeral here: 
Buy Neon Bible here:
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