El-P To Score Al Capone Biopic Fonzo
For upwards of 20 years, El-P, the indie-rap innovator and one half of Run The Jewels, has been making clanking, sputtering, avant-garde rap beats that sounded like the score to some imaginary dystopic sci-fi movie. And now El-P is getting to score an actual movie, though not a dystopic sci-fi one. Instead, he’s doing the music for an Al Capone biopic called Fonzo.
Fonzo is in production now; it started principal photography earlier this month. It’s the latest effort from Chronicle/Fantastic Four director Josh Trank, and it’s got an impressive cast that includes Tom Hardy, Linda Cardellini, Jack Lowden, Matt Dillon, and Kyle MacLachlan. It will undoubtably be fun to watch these people wearing fancy ’30s suits while whatever ominous, disorienting thing El comes up with plays on the soundtrack.
In a press release, El-P says that he’s thrilled to be involved in the movie and that he’s “a huge fan of everyone involved.” Trank, meanwhile, seems unbelievably stoked to be working with El-P:
Since I was 14 years old, El-P’s music has been one of the most important creative influences in my life. There’s literally no greater honor for me than to collaborate with him today and bear witness to this next stage of his artistic journey.
El-P has dipped a toe in the film-score water before. He scored the 2002 graffiti-write feature Bomb The System, and he recently shared his rejected score for the Blade Runner 2049 trailer.
cats out the bag. i’m scoring FONZO. psyched to get the chance to do this shit. in celebration, here’s the only picture i can possibly say i arguably look more handsome than tom hardy in. thanks to everyone involved for giving me this opportunity to get weird. pic.twitter.com/wSKZD32KD5
— el-p (@therealelp) April 18, 2018
here’s @nealbrennan , josh, me and tom on set. can’t wait to drop our theme song “FONZO RAPPIN”. pic.twitter.com/fc1dFGlTKT
— el-p (@therealelp) April 18, 2018