Back in 2014, pretty much everyone found themselves heavily invested in the true-crime podcast Serial, which followed the story of Adnan Syed and his imprisonment for the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee. Now, as HBO readies a documentary based around the series, they’ve tapped Aussie music legends Nick Cave and Warren Ellis to score the new project.
Serial was first released in October of 2014, and over the course of the next few months, true-crime fans around the world followed the story of Hae Min Lee and Adnan Syed, the man imprisoned for her murder.
The podcast has since become the most-downloaded podcast in history, allowing it to enter the social consciousness in ways never before seen. Now, HBO have announced they’re prepping a new documentary, The Case Against Adnan Syed, which will look at the case in an in-depth manner (and will also featuring some of those fancy moving pictures since it’s going to be televised).
“The Case Against Adnan Syed will offer a cinematic look at the life and 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee and conviction of Adnan Syed,” explained HBO in a press release. “From the genesis of their high school relationship, to the original police investigation and trial, through to the current day, when Syed faces a new trial after serving 18 years in jail.”
“With exclusive access to Adnan Syed, his family and his lawyers, director Amy Berg has been closely following their efforts to obtain justice, with the outcome still to be determined—and possibly shaped by the investigation pursued within the series itself.”
As Pitchfork notes, arguably the most exciting fact about this documentary is the news that Nick Cave and Warren Ellis are set to team up to score the upcoming documentary. The pair have worked together frequently in the past, with Ellis working alongside Cave as part of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Grinderman, and has also gained recognition as a member of Dirty Three as well.
Since the mid ’00s, Cave and Ellis have found themselves collaborating together on a number of soundtracks, including The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, The Road, and even the Nick Cave-written The Proposition, crafting ethereal, often unsettling soundscapes for the seproductions in the process.
At this stage, there’s no release date for the documentary, though it has been noted it’s been in production for about three years. So even if the final documentary isn’t as good as you might hope, you can rest assured knowing that the soundtrack is going to be phenomenal.
Check out Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ ‘The Proposition #1’:
