News / Published 2026-11-03

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross Return for Fincher's Cliff Booth Film

Variety reported that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross will score The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, with the news revealed on the film's poster; Pitchfork confirmed the reunion. Both outlets give the same schedule: an exclusive IMAX run from 25 November for two weeks, then Netflix on 23 December.

(See the reader poll and source context below).

The Nine Inch Nails pair will score The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, their sixth film with David Fincher, per Variety and Pitchfork. It opens in IMAX on 25 November.

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What do the sources establish?

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Platform / SourceCore Stance / QuoteEngagement MetricTimestamp
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross to Score David Fincher's 'The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth' — VarietyReported context: [object Object] [object Object] [object Object] [object Object] [object Object] [object Object] [object Object]Not recordedNot recorded
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross Are Back at It (Scoring David Fincher Movies) — PitchforkReported context: [object Object] [object Object] [object Object] [object Object] [object Object] [object Object]Not recordedNot recorded

THE SHORT VERSION

  • Variety reported that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross will score The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, with the news revealed on the film's poster; Pitchfork confirmed the reunion.
  • Both outlets give the same schedule: an exclusive IMAX run from 25 November for two weeks, then Netflix on 23 December.
  • Variety counts the job as the pair's sixth Fincher collaboration and lists the five earlier scores; neither report carries an interview or describes the music.

The score was announced on the poster

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross will score David Fincher's The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, according to Variety, which reported the news as it appeared on the film's poster. Variety calls the pair "Nine Inch Nails principals and veteran film composers", and describes the job as their sixth collaboration with Fincher on one of his movies. The music site Pitchfork also reported the reunion, in a shorter item. Pitchfork said it could "confirm the filmmaker has reunited with longtime collaborators", and carried the same two dates.

Both reports settle the schedule the same way. Variety says the film opens exclusively in IMAX on 25 November for two weeks before it becomes available to stream on Netflix on 23 December. Pitchfork puts the same plan in one line, with the theatrical date on 25 November and the Netflix premiere on 23 December. Neither outlet gives the number of IMAX screens, and neither says whether the score will be released as an album. Neither explains why the IMAX window runs two weeks, or whether it could be extended.

One outlet has the detail, the other confirms

Variety's account carries the reporting weight. Its music desk lists the composers' other credits, traces the Fincher run film by film, and quotes nothing from the pair themselves. The story is built on the poster and on the Netflix post that announced the IMAX date, which the piece embeds. Pitchfork's item is shorter: a confirmation, a sentence on the duo's history with Fincher, and a pointer to its own list of the 50 best movie scores. Variety's piece carries a music desk byline, Steven J. Horowitz, and Pitchfork's a news byline, Alex Suskind; both are reported items rather than reviews.

The difference matters for anyone reading both. Variety treats the score as a done deal announced through the studio's marketing; Pitchfork treats it as the confirmation of an expected reunion. Neither report contains an interview with Reznor, Ross or Fincher, a description of the music, or a start date for recording. On the record as published, the score is confirmed and nothing about how it sounds is known.

Six films, one Oscar and one Grammy

Variety lists the run that led here. The pair first worked with Fincher on 2010's The Social Network, which won them the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for best original score, and they went on to 2011's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, 2014's Gone Girl, 2020's Mank and 2023's The Killer. In 2013 they took the Grammy for best score soundtrack for visual media for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

The two outlets count the same body of work from slightly different angles. Variety calls Cliff Booth their sixth collaboration and then names five earlier Fincher films. Pitchfork writes that the duo "have scored Fincher's last six movies", a sentence that counts the new film among six rather than after them. Both arrive at six; only Variety spells out which five came first, and neither says whether the arrangement covers more films. Pitchfork's version of the run stops at the Oscar and does not mention the Grammy at all.

Work outside the Fincher run

Variety also lists the scores the pair wrote away from Fincher: Patriots Day, Soul, Challengers, Bird Box and Queer. Its account of their partnership starts earlier than the films. Ross has been collaborating with Reznor since 2002, when they worked on the project Tapeworm, and has contributed to numerous Nine Inch Nails releases, Variety reports. Pitchfork's item does not cover this ground at all.

For a reader trying to place the collaboration, the two pages offer different amounts of context. Variety frames Reznor and Ross as film composers who came out of a band. Pitchfork frames them as a band's two members who happen to score Fincher's films, and sends readers to a ranking of movie scores rather than to their discography. Neither frame is contradicted by the other.

What the film is, and how the cast lists differ

Variety describes Cliff Booth as a spin-off of 2019's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood that focuses on Brad Pitt's title character, written by Quentin Tarantino and set eight years after the events of the earlier film. Its cast list runs to five names: Elizabeth Debicki, Scott Caan, Carla Gugino, Timothy Olyphant and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, with Pitt in the lead.

Pitchfork gives a shorter list. It says the film stars Pitt, reprising his role as Booth, alongside Debicki, Abdul-Mateen II and Caan, and calls the project a forthcoming Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood spinoff. Neither page names a character for the four supporting actors, and neither says how large Pitt's part is. The two cast lists overlap without matching: Pitchfork's leaves out Carla Gugino and Timothy Olyphant, both of whom Variety names, which is the usual result of a poster and a press release being written a few hours apart.

What the poster confirms and what it leaves out

On the evidence of the two pages, this is a marketing beat rather than an interview. The poster carries the composers' names, the IMAX date of 25 November and the Netflix date of 23 December; Variety reproduces the Netflix post announcing the IMAX run. Pitchfork's confirmation adds no statement from the filmmakers. Nobody involved has described the score, its instrumentation or its relationship to the music of the 2019 film.

What is settled is narrow: two composers, one film, two dates, and a body of earlier work both outlets agree on. What is not settled includes the soundtrack release, the length of the score, and whether the pair will perform it live. Related coverage on this site includes John Carpenter's ACE honour, RedBird's music fund, My Chemical Romance's 2027 album plans and the theatrical run of Social Reckoning.

Sources & reporting limits

  1. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross to Score David Fincher's 'The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth' — Variety
  2. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross Are Back at It (Scoring David Fincher Movies) — Pitchfork
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