Composer Joseph Trapanese (Oblivion, Shadow and Bone, Straight Outta Compton, The Greatest Showman, Lady and the Tramp, The Raid: Redemption) is reuniting with director Michael Dowse (Goon, What If) on the upcoming HBO Max original film 8-Bit Christmas. The movie starring Neil Patrick Harris, Winslow Fegley, June Diane Raphael and Steve Zahn is set in suburban Chicago in the late 1980s and centers on ten-year-old’s herculean quest to get the latest and greatest video game system for Christmas. Kevin Jakubowski (Assassination of a High School President) wrote the family comedy’s screenplay based on his debut novel. Star Thrower Entertainment’s Tim White, Trevor White (King Richard, Ingrid Goes West) and Allan Mandelbaum (Villains) are producing the New Line production with Nick Nantell and Jonathan Sadowski. Trapanese has previously scored Dowse’s last two features, Stuber and Coffee and Kareem. 8-Bit Christmas is set to premiere this holiday season on HBO Max.
Trapanese’s other recent feature projects Joseph Kosinski’s Netflix film Escape from Spiderhead starring Chris Hemsworth, Miles Teller & Jurnee Smollett (expected to be released in 2022). He also recently scored the documentary To What Remains directed by Chris Woods about Project Recover, a small team of accomplished historians, scientists, and military veterans who scour the depths of the ocean and the farthest corners of the earth, to search for and recover the remains of the more than 80,000 Americans missing in action (MIA) since World War II. Dan Friedkin (The Mule, All the Money in the World) and Ed Shipley are producing the movie, which will premiere next month at the 2021 AFI Fest in Hollywood and will be released in theaters this December by Abramorama and Imperative Entertainment
