When I read Richard Kelly’s dismissal of Donnie Darko Goes Bananas on his MySpace blog the other day, I noted with great pleasure his upbeat mood regarding The Box, and thought nothing of his off-handed remark that “a very famous band… is honoring us with being the first filmmakers they’ve ever scored a film with.” Though Rich has pretty good taste in music (“Wave of Mutilation” excuses all that goddamn Moby), I figured it’d be The Killers, and, therefore, didn’t get terribly excited.
Well, Pitchfork Media went a-huntin’, and they proved me very, very wrong. Fuck The Killers; Kelly got Arcade Fire to score his new movie! The only way this news gets better is if he brings A.C. Newman and Dan Bejar in to make this a big ol’ Canadian hoedown.
Pitchfork gleaned this from the official website of producer Markus Dravs, who spilled that he’s taking off for the Great White North to work with the Win Butler collective. Arcade Fire might seem a strange match for a big screen adaptation of Richard Matheson’s “Button, Button”, but it doesn’t sound like Kelly is thinking small or conventional on this one. Yeah, that got him into trouble on Southland Tales, but it’s also what led him to the unexpected triumph of Donnie Darko. And while I’m not expecting him to fly off the rails twice in a row, if he does come up short, at least we’re getting some excellent music out of the deal.
Thanks to reader James May for submitting the scoop.