M83 To Score Tom Cruise-Starring Sci-Fi Blockbuster

Perhaps spurred on by the success of his own two-part sci-fi mini-movie for “Midnight City” and “Reunion”, French electro-rock act M83, aka Anthony Gonzales, has confirmed he’ll be taking his widescreen music to the silver screen by scoring a big budget Hollywood soundtrack.

According to The Playlist, Gonzales has been commissioned to write the score for a new sci-fi flick called Oblivion. The futuristic feature is directed by Joseph Kosinski, who must be a bit of a music francophile, as he also helmed Tron: Legacy, which famously featured an electronic score from Daft Punk.

Kosinski says he hand-picked Gonzales for the job because he was obsessively listening to M83 while developing the script. “He (Gonzales) was part of this from the very beginning in my mind, kind of creatively,” the director told The Playlist.

“About two years ago, when I started putting together a shortlist of people I’d love to talk to for this project, I sat down with him and we talked about it… it was very clear he had a passion for film and I knew just from his electronic music that he had the potential to create something epic,” says Kosinski.

Speaking of the project, Gonzales says “I’m not afraid to do my first soundtrack on a big Hollywood movie, with a big budget and a lot of pressure… I like challenges and it excites me more than frightens me.”

It’s not the first time Gonzales has used his epic electronic tunes to score a film, having previously contributed pieces to a 2010 French film called Black Heaven.

The plot of the new M83-scored film however, follows the journey of proganist Jack Harper – played by Tom Cruise – one of the “last few drone repairmen stationed on Earth.”  Tasked with a massive mining operation to extract vital resources from the planet after decades of war with an alien species. Jack rescues a beautiful stranger (played by Bond girl Olga Kurylenko) from a downed spacecraft which leads to events where the fate of humanity is placed in hands.

Not quite as cool as kids with psychic powers, but M83 still seems like a fitting choice.