Trailer release: Mel Gibson’s “Flight Risk” (Lionsgate)
The trailer for “Flight Risk” was just released this morning and it’s a good one!
Ya never know with trailers… sometimes they don’t do the film justice but this one did. My friends at Power-Haus in London certainly did a fantastic job with that spooky cover of “Psycho Killer” by Talking Heads which features the unmistakable vocal talents of another pal, Allie Armstrong.
I had a great time working with director Mel Gibson on the music for this film, and it would be an understatement to say that man understands how to direct action movies on a molecular level. Mel’s attention to detail on the slightest things that made the biggest difference was exciting to witness.
This was a production that could have been disastrous. We began shooting in Las Vegas during the WGA strike and wrapped JUST as the SAG strike was beginning. We were lucky to hit just the right windows last year to keep going and we have been in post-production all of this year. Yesterday was the last of our sound mix days on the Sony lot at the Carey Grant stage.
There aren’t a ton of songs in this film but music is certainly an important element given that so much of the action takes place in a tiny plane lost above the Alaskan wilderness. We brought on Antonio Pinto to score and a great deal of tension and pathos is derived from what he produced. It really keeps you on the edge of your seat while watching Mark Wahlberg go absolutely psycho.
There is also an unexpected and recurring on-camera music motif with Mark singing lines from a special song (I don’t want to ruin the surprise), which was a fun challenge to figure out. The song was originally supposed to be “Fins” by Jimmy Buffett in Jared Rosenberg’s script, but Buffett declined the use and then died two weeks later. So, there was no arguing that…
It then took over a month of spitballing options with Mel to arrive at the final choice with just barely enough time to make it work. I fully cleared 8 different songs that we all “sort of” liked for the scene because I wasn’t quite sure what he ultimately wanted to go with. I didn’t receive final clearance on the one we used until the day we needed to shoot it. I lost a little hair on this one.
“Flight Risk” opens in theaters nationwide on October 18th