“Open Discussion on the Secrets of Fight Club”
12. Fincher—whose films have become known for their haunting, and in The Social Network‘s case, Oscar-winning scores—wanted Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke to score Fight Club, but the artist was drained from promoting OK Computer and had to pass. (Norton told Raftery that he and Pitt stayed up till 4 a.m. the night they finished shooting, smoking a joint and listening to OK Computer.)
“They sent me the script and Ed and Brad Pitt wrote to me and said ‘We really think you should do this,'” Yorke told BBC 6 in 2018. “I went, ‘Nah, I can’t.’ And I couldn’t. I wouldn’t have been able to do it then, but every time I see the film I go, ‘Oh…'”
Instead, the Dust Brothers, Michael Simpson and John King, provided the post-modern sound Fincher had in mind. He “wanted it to be like a bee is stuck in your ear,” Simpson described their marching orders to Raftery. “He wanted to give the audience the impulse to leave the theater before the opening credits were done.”
King added, “There’s a schizophrenic quality to the music. But perhaps that’s appropriate for the movie.”