Marco Beltrami has been hired to score the upcoming post-apocalyptic thriller Snowpiercer. The film marks the English-language feature debut of Korean director Bong Joon-ho (Mother, The Host) and stars Chris Pine, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, John Hurt, Kenny Doughty and Octavia Spencer. The movie is set in a future where, after a failed experiment to stop global warming, an Ice Age kills off all life on the planet except for the inhabitants of the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe and is powered by a sacred perpetual-motion engine. Bong has co-written the screenplay with Kelly Masterson (Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead). Chan-wook Park (Oldboy) is producing the independent production. Snowpiercer is currently lensing in Prague. No word yet on a release date of the film.
Beltrami is also scoring the zombie romance Warm Bodies. The film is directed by Jonathan Levine (50/50, The Wackness) and stars Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, John Malkovich, Analeigh Tipton, Dave Franco and Rob Corddry. The movie based on the novel by Isaac Marion tells the story of a zombie who rescues a girl from an attack and inadvertently sparks a cross-dead romance. Levine has adapted for the novel for the screen and Bruna Papanadrea (Smart People), David Hoberman & Todd Lieberman (The Fighter, The Muppets) are producing the Summit Entertainment production. Warm Bodies is currently scheduled to be released on February 1, 2013. (Kraft-Engel Management)
Beltrami’s other upcoming films include the drama The Surrogate, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where it was picked up by Fox Searchlight for a release this fall. The composer also scored the thriller Deadfall (previously entitled Blackbird), which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last week and will be released on VOD on November 2, 2012 and in theaters on December 7 by Magnolia Pictures. Beltrami also has Marc Forster’s zombie action film World War Z starring Brad Pitt coming up, which was recently pushed back from a release in December to June 21, 2013.