Bird Box was a huge sensation when it hit Netflix in 2018 -- and it remains one of the streaming platform’s most successful original films. But Trent Reznor, who composed the score for the film, doesn’t share the same enthusiasm for the film as its fans. In fact, he hated scoring Bird Box so much that he considers it a waste of his time.
In an interview with Revolver, Trent Reznor opened up about the frustrations he and collaborator Atticus Ross experienced while working on Bird Box:
When we got immersed in it, it felt like some people were phoning it in. 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 ... [laughs] That was a fucking waste of time. Then we thought, no one's going to see this fucking movie. And, of course, it's the hugest movie ever in Netflix.
Bird Box was apparently watched in more than 80 million homes by early 2019 -- so when Trent Reznor says it’s the hugest Netflix movie ever, that’s not hyperbole. Though he and Atticus Ross clearly didn’t have the best time working on the monster hit, they were able to turn their frustrations into something their fans can enjoy. They’ve released two versions of the soundtrack -- first, an “abridged” version in January 2019. Then, in November 2019, they released Bird Box/Null 09 Extended, which captures over two hours of music recorded during their Bird Box scoring sessions.
But Trent Reznor has also had disappointments beyond Bird Box. He revealed to Revolver that after the studio requested changes to the upcoming The Woman in the Window, he and Atticus Ross stepped away from writing the score:
There's no animosity on our end. 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.
Though he rose to fame as frontman of Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor also has an extensive history writing and producing music for films. He has co-written some of the most compelling and critically acclaimed film scores of the past decade. He and Atticus Ross have composed the scores for David Fincher's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl. And they won the Academy Award for Best Original Score for their work on 2010’s The Social Network.
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are currently working on the score for Pixar’s upcoming Soul. And they’ll re-team with David Fincher for his latest project, Mank, which is, strangely enough, also for Netflix.
