Rory Culkin and Caleb Landry Jones Cast in Lords of Chaos Movie

They’ve been talking about turning the non-fiction chronicle of black metal, Lords of Chaos, into a movie since at least 2009, when they announced that teen heartthrob and Twilight star Jackson Rathbone would be playing Varg Vikernes. Although that version of the flick (obviously) never came to fruition, Bloody Disgusting now reports that the film is in production with Rory Culkin (Scream 4, Signs) and Caleb Landry Jones (Antiviral, X-Men: First Class, The Last Exorcist) in the leads.

The article doesn’t specify who’s playing who, but they do claim the film is being made as a thriller, which suggests to me that one of these actors is playing Vikernes while the other is playing Øystein Aarseth, a.k.a. Euronymous, who was murdered by Vikernes in 1993. I mean, if the flick isn’t about two close friends who get into some really bad shit (e.g., church burnings) before one murders the other, I dunno how you make this story into a thriller.

And y’know what? Although it might have been nice to use some actual Norwegians, Culkin and Jones are actually pretty good casting! I know everyone’s first instinct is to give Culkin (above left) shit for being Macaulay’s little brother, but if you’ve seen the guy in the past few years, you’re already aware that he’s turned into a full-blown metalhead; Jones (above right), meanwhile, is just weird as fuck (I mean, look at that dude!), so it shouldn’t be too hard to buy him as one of the founders of black metal.

The movie is being directed by Jonas Åkerlund, who was the drummer in Bathory for a year before going on to become a big shot music video director who has made clips for Metallica, Rammstein, and Satyricon, amongst others:

https://youtu.be/XONPIXiYP8A

I’ve only seen one of Åkerlund’s feature films — 2002’s Spun — and it was pretty terrible. Still that was thirteen years ago, so maybe he’s learned to tell a story by now?

No word on a release date or anything like that, but I’m sure we’ll feel compelled to share more info as it becomes available.