I might be the only blogger that felt this way today but even though I knew Zack Snyder's Superman: The Man of Steel would be a complete reinvention of the character and his world, it hadn't occurred to me that John Williams' iconic theme, possibly the most famous piece of film music of all time, would be dropped and replaced by something new. I guess if I had thought about it properly, I would have known the news was coming but at the same time imagining a Superman movie without Williams' theme is imagining a Superman movie without our Man from Krypton being able to fly. Or more apt, it would be like a James Bond movie without that famous John Barry score. Doesn't the Williams/Superman signature transcend the movies they have appeared in? Snyder, with an obvious nudge from Team Nolan - has enlisted Oscar winning and top-drawer composer Hans Zimmer to conduct the main theme. Zimmer now has the same difficult challenge he had for the recent Batman franchise and that's to create something new, distinct and fitting as a replacement from a previous iconic score (in the previous case Danny Elfman's music for Tim Burton). Zimmer told NBC as found by AICN;
It's a hard one, mused Zimmer, but I followed one of the most iconic things on 'Batman' with Chris as well, and it's the same thing. You are allowed to reinvent, but you have to try to be as good or at least as iconic and it has to resonate and it has to become a part of the zeitgeist. That's the job. On 'Gladiator' I remember people always talking about 'Spartacus' and I kept telling them, 'When you saw "Spartacus" and how it affected it you, that's how I want a modern audience to be affected by what we do now.' So I think ultimately you're supposed to reinvent.
Love his Gladiator theme by the way...Zimmer then, is a composer whose music you will have heard a dozen times. He is pretty much the blockbuster man at WB - he has scored Nolan's Batman films (of which I thought The Dark Knight was a massive improvement on Begins and one of the best scores of 2008);The striking Inception score that's haunting... Sherlock Holmes, a magnificently inventive score last year;and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies at Disney;So far at least, he has found a distinct tone for all. Meanwhile, despite the hiring of Nolan's composer - his producer (and Nolan's wife) Emma Thomas has told Hitfix that they are handing [Superman] off to him and it's now Snyder's baby now as they focus on The Dark Knight Rises. They even say in bold "Thomas reiterated that they brought it to an appropriate screenplay and its now Snyders picture. Though please Nolan, keep an eye on the guy, OK? He may well be preparing his third comics-to-film translation but Snyder's grasp on story and tone is nowhere near where it should be.