For her sophomore directorial effort “W.E.,” Madonna is certainly surrounding herself with some solid talent. She’s got Abbie Cornish, Oscar Isaac, Andrea Riseborough and James D’Arcy to lead the cast in the highly ambitious film, that tells the parallel stories of the love affair between King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, which led to the royal’s abdication, and the contemporary story of a woman, Wally Winthrop, with romantic problems of her own, in addition to an obsession with the life of the Duchess of Windsor. And with all that pomp and circumstance going on, a classical score is unsurprisingly being prepped and the Queen Of Pop has roped in some intriguing collaborators.
According to a source speaking to the Daily Mail (via Ace Showbiz), “Madonna is working with William Orbit, who produced her synth-electronica album ‘Ray of Light’, but it will be quite an adjustment for them. Abel Korzeniowski, who composed the soundtrack to ‘A Single Man‘, is on hand to help.”
As a rule, unless it’s coming from Baz Bamigboye, we don’t believe a word from the Daily Mail or the Brit papers in general but Abel Korzeniowski is hardly a household or website-hit-worthy name by any stretch, which leads us to believe there is likely some truth to this one. Certainly, Orbit has been a frequent collaborator with Madonna, producing a number of her songs. He’s also worked with Blur, U2, Pink, All Saints and Finley Quaye so the man knows his way around a pop song. As for Korzeniowski, he’s still very much on the rise. His best-known work is the impeccable score for the aforementioned “A Single Man” but most recently, he found his contributions to “Rabbit Hole” put aside for some work by Anton Sanko instead.
It certainly seems like an odd group of players coming together but if we had to guess, we’d say that Orbit and Madonna are likely focusing on music for the more contemporary portions of the film, while Korzeniowski is probably penning music for the period sections of the movie. Again, just a wild guess at this point and certainly the quote above doesn’t reveal much about the process going on between the three.
While select scenes of “W.E.” already screened for potential buyers at the European Film Market in February, the film will not be headed to the Croisette and is being prepped for a fall festival bow.