Live on stage, John Carpenter has made a handshake deal to write the music for Bong Joon-ho’s future horror film.
Does a verbal agreement and a handshake count as an official confirmation? If so, then veteran genre filmmaker John Carpenter could eventually compose the soundtrack to Parasite and Mickey 17 director Bong Joon-ho’s forthcoming horror movie.
The seemingly ad-hoc deal was made after a screening of a new, 4K restoration of Carpenter’s 1982 horror, The Thing. Leading the Q&A was Bong Joon-ho, sitting on stage alongside Carpenter himself. In a clip published on X/Twitter/The Dark Place (and shared by World of Reel), Joon-ho asks Carpenter, “Would you be interested in doing music for another film?”
“Oh! I want to do your score,” Carpenter says, nodding.
What Joon-ho says in response is briefly drowned out by – understandably – enthusiastic applause from the crowd. But then the two filmmakers shake hands, leading to yet more excitable whoops from the audience.
Joon-ho’s most recent film is the sci-fi satire Mickey 17, which is set to be fast-tracked to premium video-on-demand after it was rather undeservedly overlooked in cinemas. Meanwhile, the Korean filmmaker is working on an animated film said to be about sea creatures; then, after that, he plans to make a live-action horror film set in Seoul’s underground rail network.
Read more: Mickey 17 review | Another Bong hit
The filmmaker has previously said that the untitled horror is one he’s been thinking about since 2001, and in February, described one of its scenes:
“We’re running through the underground section of the subway. In the car next to us, people wearing similar clothes start to come over to our side. We’re running. A lot of people start to come over to our side.”
John Carpenter has composed the scores for his own films since his career as a feature director began with Dark Star in 1974. Famous for their use of synths and often eerie repeating melodies, his music for the likes of Assault On Precinct 13 (1976), Halloween (1978) and Escape From New York is by now iconic.
Curiously, though, examples of Carpenter writing the scores for other directors’ movies is comparatively rare. In 2011, this writer asked the filmmaker why this was and his reply was, simply, “I haven’t been asked.”
Joon-ho has clearly asked. Here’s hoping the collaboration does actually happen.
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