10 Awesome Musical Scores That Deserved Better Movies

It's pretty obvious from watching the 1995 Judge Dredd that this was a troubled, messy production that had absolutely no idea what to do with the ultra-violent cult British dystopian satire comic.

The music did not escape the dumpster fire that was the rest of Judge Dredd's production. Director Danny Cannon wanted the film to be scored by Stargate and Independence Day's David Arnold, who he had worked with before, but Jerry Goldsmith was eventually hired instead. As endless delays pushed back Dredd's post-production, Goldsmith too had to leave to work on the equally misjudged Richard Gere-as-Sir Lancelot romance First Knight.

That left Alan Silvestri (then coming off the back of Forrest Gump) to come in as the third composer hired for this job. Perhaps slightly surprisingly under the circumstances, Silvestri rose to the challenge like nobody else working on this film did.

His score thrums with bombastic brass and relentless, pounding percussion, appropriate to the fascist dystopia of Mega City One, but there's equally an underlying complexity to the music which is not really on display in Stallone's interpretation of the eponymous judge.

Silvestri is perhaps better known today for his later comic book scores, currently riding high off the back of the Avengers series, but, while the movie itself is a failure, musically Judge Dredd may be his best comic book work.