Netflix‘s The Twits is moving classic Roald Dahl book characters from the page to the screen. The vibrant animation of the upcoming film, out Oct. 17, will bring the complexities of Jim and Credenza Twit and their unruly amusement park, Twitlandia, to life. So will its soundtrack of original music from Talking Heads‘ David Byrne, with an appearance from Paramore‘s Hayley Williams.
“I still can’t quite believe that I spent the last few years collaborating with David Byrne, a musical hero of mine since I was 13,” The Twits director, writer, and producer Phil Johnston shared in a statement. “From the first demo he sent me, on which the featured instrument was a 100-year-old banjolele, I knew I was going to love the songs he wrote. Throughout the process, my collaboration with David has been incredibly fun and surprisingly easy, probably because I’ve been stealing from him for so long.”
Byrne worked with Johnston to clearly understand “what each song needed to express and what the character was feeling at that moment,” the musician said. “This was a fun project. Like other Roald Dahl books, this one has its share of dreadful characters – this time, two of them are front and center. Kids (and adults) love that they can vicariously imagine their own worst impulses played out, harmlessly, in a punky fun story. So when I was approached to write some songs for this movie, I immediately sai,d ‘let me give it a try and see if you like what I come up with.’”
Nailing the song to close the film, a song titled “Open the Door,” was essential. “When David and I started talking about an end-credit song, the first potential collaborator David brought up was Hayley Williams,” Johnston said. “The first word I said was ‘yes.’ Followed by ‘please.’ I still can’t quite believe that two of my favorite songwriters wrote a song together for The Twits. The saying, ‘never meet your heroes’ simply does not apply here. I met two of them, and boy howdy, it’s been a dream come true.”
“Being a part of this movie is like one pinch-me moment after another,” Williams shared. “My favorite Roald Dahl book growing up was The Twits. I’m drawn to learning about twisted characters like Mr. and Mrs. Twit and The Wormwoods from Matilda. The way Phil and Daisy adapted the original story was really exciting to me, as was the animation style. It feels like a cautionary tale – and also a really lovely depiction of chosen family and community, which is one of my favorite topics. I owe David Byrne for pulling me into the music for this. It was so fun and so surreal starting a song from scratch with him.”
Bryne and Williams thought the end credits song “should serve to remind us that there is heart and connection in the story after all the unpleasantness depicted by Mr. and Mrs. Twit,” the Talking Heads frontman said. “Hayley was inspired by Beesha’s story and came up with some lyric ideas and I set them to tune and boom.”
A synopsis of The Twits described the film as “a story for our times, about the never-ending battle between cruelty and empathy.” The cast of the film — featuring Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Ryan Lopez, Timothy Simons, Nicole Byer, Jason Mantzoukas, Alan Tudyk, Mark Proksch, Rebecca Wisocky, and Charlie Berens, and more — performs three of Bryne’s creations, titled “We’re Not Like Ev’ryone Else,” “Lullaby,” and “The Problem Is You.”
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