New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Composer Matthew Llewellyn (Chiller TV's Deep In The Darkness) reunites with director Colin Theys and Synthetic Cinema International to score Lifetime's movie adaptation of Wally Lamb's New York Times best-selling Christmas novel, "Wishin' and Hopin'", with narration by Chevy Chase and starring
Molly Ringwald. Wally Lamb's "Wishin' and Hopin'" premieres on Lifetime, Saturday, December 6, 8PM ET/PT.
Llewellyn masterfully combines the familiar with a contemporary flair while illustrating his craftsmanship and diversity as a thematic orchestral composer employing the full dynamic range of the orchestra. Recorded with the Slovakia
National Symphony Orchestra, Llewelyn's score positively sparkles with memorable motifs and sweeping orchestrations at center stage throughout this fun and festive film for the holiday season.
"Matthew delivered an outstanding score that elevates the project above a typical holiday movie," enthuses director Colin Theys. "We worked together from the beginning, talking about what it needed to accomplish and the tone we needed to strike. The result is a beautiful score that shapes the film and will stick with you long after the movie ends. Matthew knows how to bring that classical sense of elegance and grandeur to his work, making the movie feel like an instant classic."
Set in the 1960s, "Wishin' and Hopin'" is the story of 10-year-old Felix Funicello (Wyatt Ralff, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby), who is doing his best to navigate fifth grade at St. Aloysius Gonzaga Parochial School. His father (Danny Nucci, The Fosters) runs the local diner, and their family's claim to fame is their cousin, Annette Funicello (Krysta Rodriguez, Smash), the famous teen star and Mouseketeer.
With the dreaded Christmas pageant on the horizon, the holiday season gets even more exciting with the sudden arrivals of a substitute teacher (Ringwald) and a feisty Russian student, Zhenya, and promises to be one Christmas Felix will never forget. Also stars
Meat Loaf (Fight Club), Annabella Sciorra (CSI), Cheri Oteri (Saturday Night Live), Conchata Ferrell (Two and a Half Men) and
Camila Banus (Days of Our Lives).
The "Wishin' and Hopin'" Original Motion Picture
Soundtrack will be released digitally by MovieScore Media on December 2, preceding the film's broadcast on Lifetime, December 6. For more information visit https://www.mylifetime.com/movies/wally-lambs-wishin-and-hopin and preview tracks from the "Wishin' and Hopin'" Original Motion Picture
Soundtrack at https://soundcloud.com/matthewllewellyn/sets/wishin-and-hopin-soundtrack-preview.
About Matthew Llewellyn
Film composer Matthew Llewellyn's musical repertoire is grounded in the traditions of symphonic music for cinema as well as the modern movie-making experience. Llewellyn has been an integral member of composer Brian Tyler's team working on high profile projects such as IRON MAN 3, THOR: THE DARK WORLD, NOW YOU SEE ME, THE EXPENDABLES 2 & 3, and FINAL DESTINATION 5. Llewellyn composed additional music for the critically acclaimed video game FAR CRY 3 and Don Coscarelli's (Bubba Ho-Tep, Phantasm) film JOHN DIES AT THE END which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012. He also provided musical arrangements for the hit video games ASSASSIN'S CREED IV: BLACK FLAG, ARMY OF TWO: THE DEVIL'S CARTEL and CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 3.
Recently branching out with his own composing career, Matthew Llewellyn has scored three feature films for the Chiller Network, a division of NBC Universal, including DEEP IN THE DARKNESS, DEAD SOULS and REMAINS. His dramatic orchestral scores for DEEP IN THE DARKNESS and DEAD SOULS were both recorded with the Slovakia
National Symphony Orchestra. The DEAD SOULS soundtrack was released by Screamworks Records and MovieScore Media and his score for DEEP IN THE DARKNESS is available on ScreamWorks Records and Kronos Records in partnership with MovieScore Media.
Matthew Llewellyn graduated from the Scoring for Motion Picture and Television program at the University of Southern California as well as receiving a Bachelors of
Music degree in Film Scoring at Berklee College of Music. Born in California but raised in Minnesota, Llewellyn has played piano since the age of six and guitar from the age of fourteen. He also plays mandolin, bouzouki, ukulele and bass. For more information on Matthew Llewellyn, visit the composer's website at www.matthewllewellyn.com.
