The upcoming Cameron Crowe’s movie, ‘We Bought A Zoo’ staring Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Thomas Haden Church, and Elle Fanning among others, will be scored by Sigur Rós frontman Jónsi.
The movie is based on a true story (Benjamin Mee’s memoirs), and tells the story of a widowed father who follows his late wife’s wishes by re-opening a struggling zoo.
Crowe first said on his website that the soundtrack would contain lots of Neil Young and Eddie Vedder:
‘I think it’s going to lean heavily into one or two artists, but not necessarily either of them. We did play a lot of Eddie, Neil and PJ during the movie. It’s kind of revealing itself now. There is another artist who is campaigning in the editing room with his music ala Cat Stevens in ‘Harold and Maude.’ We’ll see how far it gets.’
And recently, Todd VanDerWerff, a TV editor for The A.V. Club attending the TV Critics Press Tour, twitted about it:
‘Jónsi from Sigur Rós is scoring We Bought A Zoo. Everybody add him to your Oscar predictions all at once.’
I had no idea, but there is some kind of history between Crowe and Jonsi as the film maker once declared this about the Icelandic band:
‘Sigur Rós is one of the great bands to know this simple fact — the best music creates a movie in your mind. Making ‘Vanilla Sky,’ we played Sigur Rós constantly. It inspired us and gave us grooves that became part of the DNA of our own movie. But that’s just us. Play Sigur Rós yourself. In every sound and song, they will reach deep into your soul. Sigur Ros is some of the best filmmaking you’ll ever hear.’
And it seems they did the same for this upcoming movie, as Crowe explained during the Television Critics Association press tour: ‘It was a music-filled experience. Matt Damon loves Sigur Ros. We played some of the music on his first day on set, and he said, ‘Keep it coming man, keep it coming.’
I actually would have never thought of a Jonsi-Crowe association, but since Jonsi also said that 'Almost Famous' made him want to be in a band, it sounds all good.