Bird Box Composer Trent Reznor Called the Experience a “Waste of Time”

Trent Reznor might be most known for his musical act Nine Inch Nails, but the past decade has seen him collaborating regularly with composer Atticus Ross for soundtracks to movies and TV shows, though the musician laments how the final product of Netflix’s Bird Box turned out. Reznor has regularly contributed the scores for David Fincher films, likely confirming the positive working relationship he has with the filmmaker, but speaking with Revolver, Reznor detailed just how frustrating the experience was and how he ended up so dissatisfied with the Bird Box experience. He also highlighted what he thought would be a silver lining, which ended up being far from the reality the film experienced.

“When we got immersed in it, it felt like some people were phoning it in,” Reznor admitted to the outlet of the experience. “And you’re stuck with a film editor who had real bad taste. That’s kind of our barricade to getting stuff in the film. And the final icing on the shit cake was we were on tour when they mixed it. And they mixed the music so low, you couldn’t hear it anyway. So it was like, that was a … That was a f-cking waste of time.”

Given the number of Netflix films that debut each month, Reznor had assumed that it would be a forgettable debut on the streaming service, due to how he perceived the final product, only for the film to quickly earn widespread consumption.

“Then we thought, no one’s going to see this f-cking movie,” the musician joked. “And, of course, it’s the hugest movie ever in Netflix.”

Interestingly, Reznor seemed less frustrated with the fact that the pair had previously recorded a score for the upcoming Amy Adams-starring thriller The Woman in the Window, only for the film to undergo a major overhaul that saw him withdraw their contributions.

The musician claims they crafted “an avant-garde score” but that the film “underwent a transformation after some testing audiences” that resulted in the separation.

“There’s no animosity on our end,” Reznor confessed. “It’s frustrating when you did that much work and it’s gone. And we were proud — and they were proud — of the movie that it was.”

Fans recently enjoyed the pair’s work with the score to HBO’s Watchmen and will experience an all-new score for Fincher’s upcoming film Mank. The novel that served as the inspiration for Bird Box recently earned a sequel, Malorie.

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