When the blockbuster movie was born in the late 70s, the stonking, foot stomper theme was in its prime. This is when John Williams made his name with scores for Jaws, Superman and Star Wars. The modern superhero boom can arguably be traced back to 1989's Batman, and again, there was a memorable, hummable, infectious theme, this time courtesy of Danny Elfman. But more recently, the glut of superhero pictures hasn't produced anything like the same calibre of 'hit themes.' Iron Man has no big character theme, Thor neither, and Chris Nolan's Batpictures don't really scratch that itch at all. But Man of Steel almost does. It's not comparable to John Williams' Superman theme, but Hans Zimmer did definitely offer up some kind of hook and tied it to Jor-El. Now he's starting work on the music for Batman v Superman, and according to the man himself, the idea will be to write themes for all of the Justice League characters to be used in the film. The implication, perhaps, is that these themes would then seed the soundtracks for the eventual 'standalone' movies. Here's Zimmer taking, if tentatively, about these plans on the Oscars red carpet. As he says, he's handed off the work on Batman's personal motifs to Junkie XL. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o234elA-qQU Of course, the whole film will need a coherent musical identity of its own, which could mean these various themes end up being rather similar. Or maybe it will just sound like a terrible hodge podge. We'll find out next spring, when Batman v Superman opens on March 24th, 2016.
Brendon Connelly has been a film writer since the early 90s, with time on the staff of Orbit Magazine, Slashfilm, Bleeding Cool, Den of Geek and many more. He's a long time teacher of film studies and practical filmmaking classes, and has directed music videos, commercials, short films and more. His favourite film is Terry Gilliam's Brazil, his favourite food is pancakes or crepes, and he tries to live his life by the teachings of Kermit the Frog.
