If you’ve ever been a fan of orchestral movie soundtracks, then chances are, at least some of them have been composed by Hans Zimmer. The man has been churning out soundtrack after soundtrack for years now, from the Lion King through to the more recent Man of Steel. Having finished with that score, Zimmer explained that he wouldn’t be back to score another movie starring the Batman, as he didn’t want to “betray” the work that he’d done with director Christopher Nolan. Looks like Zimmer is having second thoughts about that.
Speaking to Digital Spy, Zimmer confirmed that he had met with Batman vs Superman director Zack Snyder, and would head for the set to see if he could find some inspiration once he wrapped up work on Christopher Nolan’s latest project, Interstellar:
We’ve already had a couple of chats, and once I finish the movie that I shall not talk about I will probably head over to where Zack is shooting his movie and just hang out a bit and see if we can come up with any ideas… [A new Batman theme is] my problem, that’s my dilemma. I don’t want to betray, if that’s the right word, the Dark Knight movies. That was Christian, it was Christian’s role. It’s not just that it was nine years of our lives, so you want to stay honest and honourable to that period. So it’s really about, ‘Is there something else I can find that I haven’t tapped into?’ Which I don’t know until I sit down with Zack.”
It’s an odd situation, but an interesting one nonetheless. If Zimmer can come back on board, that will lend the project not only some familiarity, but a composer that is tied to the material in front of him. Whether he can whip up a new Batman theme is the main hurdle here, but if anyone can do it, it’s Zimmer. Ode to joy people.
Last Updated: April 16, 2014
Gareth L (That eXCheez Guy)
April 16, 2014 at 13:39
Wow, that must be a first: a composer having to do a completely different theme and score for the same character.
His Man of Steel score alone was so intentionally different from his Dark Knight music, and now he’s going to have to go away from all of that – and *still* have a “Batman”-theme sound to it.
Good luck to him. As long as we don’t get another cop-out like he did with Pirate of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. That is possibly his least inspired work; he had Rodrigo y Gabriela at his disposal and barely touched on their stuff.