Correction: Due to an error by the BBC, TheSequitur.com incorrectly reported that Radiohead wrote the score for the upcoming film “Choke” in a Morning Coffee blog post published Wednesday, June 13, 2008. BBC now reports that Radiohead's management denies that the band is providing the score for "Choke" but confirms that its song "Reckoner" from the album "In Rainbows" will accompany the closing credits of the film. We regret the error. 

When Chuck Palahniuk’s debut novel, “Fight Club,” was adapted for the big screen, The Dust Brothers’ soundtrack provided the film with an atmosphere of urgency and purpose that was perfect for the story. Now that a movie of the author’s fourth novel, “Choke” (2001), is set to hit theaters in September, the BBC reports that Radiohead will write the score.

When writing “Choke,” Palahniuk listened to the genre-bending band Radiohead for inspiration.

So what kind of story will Radiohead’s music accompany?"Clark Gregg [Choke director]... knew that I'd written Choke while listening to [Radiohead's 1993 debut album] ‘Pablo Honey,’ with ‘Creep’ over and over and over," BBC quotes Palahniuk as saying on the Shaun Keaveny Breakfast Show.

Gregg showed the band the film in hopes of convincing them to write the song for the last moments of the film and the credits. After viewing it, the band decided to not only write the final song, but the entire score, BBC reports.

So what kind of story will Radiohead’s music accompany?

...[A] sex-addicted con-man who pretends to choke at expensive restaurants...“Choke” follows the tale of a sex-addicted con-man who pretends to choke at expensive restaurants, allows fellow patrons to “save” him, enjoys their sympathies and reaps monetary awards for their efforts. It’s sick and twisted in the classic Palahniukian style, with characters and situations so unimaginable you are almost forced to believe they exist somewhere.

A good film score highlights and plays off of every element of the story it accompanies. The pulsing beats of The Dust Brothers’ soundtrack were able to bring the viewer into the fist-pounding underground world of “Fight Club.”

Radiohead, on the other hand, is working with a story that is at one turn depraved and calculating, at the other sentimental and wistful. Long story short: they have their work cut out for them.

And as a rabid Palahniuk fan who wants this movie to succeed on all fronts, I hope they’ll do a hell of a job.
[BBC, IMDB, Fox Searchlight]